


Thanatocene

by Untherius



Category: Jurassic Park Original Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: Babies, Childbirth, F/M, Far Future, Found Family, Gen, Leather, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-01-06 05:00:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 83,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21220991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Untherius/pseuds/Untherius
Summary: Some things should have stayed extinct.





	1. In the Words of the Matriarch

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the Greek word for death.

Darielle Snow heaved a heavy sigh that turned into a brief cough. Around the gallie-down pillow cradling her head, she strained to hear the hushed conversation between her mother and their physician. After what felt like forever, a forever during which she could do little more than gaze up at the arched beams supporting the low vaulted juniper plank ceiling of her chambers, the man departed with a curt bow.

The closing door echoed briefly off stone walls mostly draped with tapestries, except for one bare wall on which an artist had painted a copy of one of the copies of a drawing her many-greats grandmother Alexis had done of what the Cascade skyline had looked like when the family had first settled the Bend country.

Her mother strode over to her bed and sank gracefully onto a wooden stool. For several long moments, she gazed with big, deep green eyes offset by raven-black hair pulled back into the traditional ponytail. “It is as I thought,” she said.

“Am I going to die?” Darielle said in a half-whisper.

Her mother's concerned expression changed into a strained smile. “Not today, dear.”

“Tomorrow?”

She chuckled. “Not tomorrow, either. It is only the chickenpox.”

“Oh. How bad is that?”

Her mother shrugged. “Not very. Remember the influenza you caught last year?”

Darielle nodded. How could she forget? The whole affair had been positively awful! For all that it had only lasted a few days. A few hellish days, in her opinion.

“It will be like that, but for a full fortnight. And those red itchy spots?”

Darielle had nearly managed to ignore them. She reached for one on her arm. Her mother stayed her hand and pushed it gently, but firmly, back to her side.

“You should not scratch at them, dear.”

“But they itch!”

“Oh, I know!” She pointed to the middle of her forehead. “Have I told you how I came to have this?”

“The blue spot? It marks you as a Knight of Thunder, of course.”

“No, I mean this other mark.”

Darielle peered at her mother's face. “You mean that...um...hole?”

“I, too, had the chickenpox when I was about your age. My mother told me not to pick at them. I did it anyway. And one of them left this scar, just as she promised it would. The good physician will bring some ointment to help with the itch. Otherwise, I fear you must stay here for a while and rest.”

“All day?”

“All fortnight.”

“But that will positively bore me to tears!”

“Oh, I know, I know. Which is why I brought you this.”

Her mother held out a thick, leather-bound volume. Darielle took it and looked at the embossing on the cover. “The Diary of Ellen Sattler-Grant, Volume the First,” she said sotto-voce.

“It should keep you occupied. Besides, you are heiress and it is high time you learn more about your heritage.”

“But I know all about it,” Darielle protested.

How her many-greats grandmother had led the first people out of Nublar far to the south and through the Dead Lands. How she had assembled the first Knights of Thunder. How she had become the first Queen. How her daughter Alicia had married Thunder, the son of Alexis, first Knight of Thunder along with her brother Timothy.

“In the words of the Matriarch herself?”

Darielle shook her head.

Her mother continued. “Copied painstakingly by hand at least once every five generations. And if the sages are correct, then it will fall on you to lead us as we pass out of the Thanatocene Epoch.”

Darielle knew her mother was right. She just didn't like it. And she knew she didn't have to like it, and she liked that even less. So she dutifully opened the book and began to read. Outside, a trout jumped in Lake Deshuts at the foot of the Zangre, that great fortress in Bend from which her family had ruled for the last six hundred years.

She opened to the first page, a frontispiece identifying the book's title, the scribe who'd penned it, or in this case copied from an earlier copy. The copy record itself was maintained in the Great Library and took up its own volume, the names going back hundreds of generations.

By royal decree, the Diary of Ellen Sattler-Grant was painstakingly copied, both the long-incomprehensible English in as close to Ellen's own hand as could be managed, and the occasionally-updated Modern Tongue. Also copied were the drawings originally done in pencil and charcoal by Alexis Snow nee Murphy.

“Now,” said her mother, “you will need your rest.”

Darielle fingered the book resting beside her. “But...”

“Read one entry, then rest. Then another, then more rest. Is that clear?”

Darielle sighed heavily. “Yes, Mama,” she said weakly.

“I love you very much, dear.”

“I love you more.”

“I love you most.”

She began to read, mentally converting the journal entries into moving pictures in her mind, in the opposite way she daily turned her own life into the journal she wrote every evening just before her bedtime prayers to Kugar.


	2. Dusk of the Living

Ellie slid the splintered, filthy end of a two-by-four past a set of snapping jaws, braced it against the chest of the juvenile dilophosaur trying to eat her, and shoved. The animal lost its grip on the pitted marine steel gunwale and fell three yards onto the dock below with a dull thud against creosote timbers.

“Oh, thank God they can't spit when they're dead,” she breathed.

A couple of yards away, Lex connected the shattered end of a four-foot bamboo pole with a dead compy that had managed to clamber up nearly-smooth hull plating. The creature cartwheeled through the air and flopped into the water on the other side of the dock.

“Grandpa!” Lex shrieked. “You said this was unscalable!”

“It should be,” John said. “We spared...”

Ian cut in, “...no expense! Right, right. And dinosaurs shouldn't have come back from extinction once, let alone twice, and...”

“Ian!” Ellie shouted. “Fight now, lecture later!”

“It's better than nothing,” Tim shouted over the din. He shoved his own bamboo pole into the throat of a juvenile velociraptor. The creature's fall ripped the pole from Tim's grasp.

All around, the horrific moaning of dead humans and dinosaurs blended with the intermittent growls of a recalcitrant diesel engine and the occasional crackle-pop from the inferno slowly consuming the dockside structure a hundred yards away.

On the dock, the dilophosaur lurched back onto its feet and looked up at her with milky eyes. It opened its mouth and moaned.

Beside it, two dead humans in tattered and filthy lab coats also looked up at her, pawing futilely at marine-grade painted metal and blithely trampling their own dangling entrails. The dinosaur jumped again, lightly clipping the otherwise oblivious humans. Its claws caught the rail with an awkward jerking motion. Ellie slammed the board edge-wise across the beast's phalanges, the crunch part wood and part bone, flaps of skin peeling away to reveal greying flesh.

The animal lost its grip and slipped off. Its jaw clipped the rail on the way down, teeth clacking audibly. It hit the dock, scattering the two humans, a half-grown velociraptor, and a trio of gallies, one of which toppled into the water.

“Alan!” she yelled.

“Almost got it,” he replied.

Ian yelled back, “You said that ten minutes ago!”

“Shut up, Ian!” Ellie shouted.

Near the end of the pier, two stegosaurs lumbered out of the jungle foliage, followed by a rex, a brachiosaur, and a mostly-grown raptor. Open wounds and a few exposed ribs showed against darker skin streaked with caked blood, lymph, and that still-unidentified inky black goo.

The kids gasped.

“Now would be a good time!” Ian yelled.

Ellie didn't bother to correct him. She looked down at the foot or so of water between the dock and the too-slowly drifting boat. Three dead compies leaped up, missed entirely, and vanished beneath the surface with dull splashes. Two humans groped futily, and likewise fell through the gap.

One of the stegosaurs lurched onto the pier. The other missed a step and toppled into the water, throwing a wave in every direction that washed a clutch of tottering dead compies off the other side of the dock. The rex followed, its forelimbs dangling absently.

“We're gonna die,” Lex whimpered, “we're gonna die, we're gonna die...”

“No, we're not,” Ellie insisted.

“Yeah, we are...”

“When you're old, grey, and surrounded by your great-grandchildren.”

_Dammit, Alan, hurry up, or the kid's going to be right!_

“Ian,” she said, “can you put a flare at the base of the dock? Where it meets the pier?”

“Uh...sure, sure. Why?”

“Get ready.” She snatched up the crossbow she'd dropped beside a bulkhead, frantically cocked it, and slid a bolt home.

“Doctor Sattler,” said Ian, “what, what are you doing? Alan shot that raptor, twice, in-in the chest, with a hollow-point slug, and it, it didn't even notice.”

“Ever watched 'MacGyver?'” She took aim at a collection of barrels stacked beneath a lean-to, exhaled, and slowly squeezed the trigger.

_TUNG!_ A moment later, a metallic _THUNK_ cut through the moaning.

“I think they did this on 'The A-Team,'” said Ian.

“Just shoot it, Ian,” said Ellie.

“What is that?” Tim asked.

“Gasoline,” said Ian.

“You want to barbecue them? Excellent!”

“Let's hope this works,” said Ian. He checked the gun, aimed, and fired.

A flare shot out the end, bounced off the dead stegosaur, and landed on the dock. The expanding pool of gasoline caught, and quickly spread. A moment later, a barrel exploded. Then another, and another. Two of them launched straight up, arced at a several-dozen yard zenith, then came crashing back down. Shards of shrapnel bounced off of everything. Ellie felt a sharp sting across her temple and flinched. Then the shockwave hit, pulling with it an already-oppressive heat.

The dead continued to moan. The compies caught fire, twitched several times, and collapsed. One of the dead humans fell over, convulsed briefly, and went still. The other stepped off the dock into the water with a brief hiss-and-sizzle. Most of the others, some with fresh and bloodless wounds and charred patches of hide, paused only a few seconds before wandering across the newly-flaming creosote planks.

The growl of an engine shuddered the deck beneath her feet.

“Yes!” Lex yelled. “You blew them up!”

“Yeah,” said Tim, “way up!”

“Get us the hell out of here!” Ian yelled.

The boat continued to back away. Ten yards...twenty...thirty. The plates of one stegosaur followed, protruding above the water like the fins of several sharks from a bad movie. The brachiosaur plowed into the water in a lumbering pursuit. Beyond the pursuers, a half-dozen burning lumps lay on the dock.

“Are they gonna drown?” Lex asked. “Please tell me they can drown.”

“I don't know, honey,” said Ellie.

“They're dead,” said Ian. “They don't have to...” Ellie silenced him with a glare and a sharp shake of the head.

“They don't have to breathe, do they?” Tim asked.

Lex whimpered.

Ellie looked at the brachiosaur still following them.

“Now what?” Ian demanded.

“Alan should start turning us around right about...now.”

As if on cue, the engine wound down and the boat began to turn gently to starboard.

“You don't think the dead can, can swim, do you?” Ian asked.

Ellie half-glared at him. “Ian...”

The boat shuddered.

“We hit something,” he said.

It shuddered again.

“No, Ian, other way around. Alan!”

The kids shrieked, then the engine revved up. The boat lurched, swung hard to port, then shook with another thud from below. Then smoothness.

Ellie took her eyes off of the smoke rising from the receding dock. “With any luck,” she said, “the fire will spread.”

“It's wet,” said Ian.

“Many of those plants are loaded with oils,” said Ellie. “They'll burn.”

“Ellie?” said John.

Ellie looked at the old man. He stood with head and shoulders above the deck.

“Whatever it was that hit us,” he said, “it did some damage.”

“What, what sort of damage?” Ian asked.

“We've sprung a leak,” said John.

“How bad?”

“A gallon a minute, maybe more?”

“Can we bail it?” Ellie asked.

John nodded. “I think so.”

“Good. Get the kids on it, then inform Alan.” She looked at Ian. “How's the arm?”

Ian grimaced. “Still hurts like hell.”

Ellie looked at the makeshift bandage around Ian's right forearm and the two layers of cloth he'd duct-taped around the fetid wound.

“We'd better get that properly treated,” she said.

Ian looked at her with the hardest expression she'd ever seen.

“Just do it,” she commanded.

Ian nodded. “I guess there's, there's bound to be a, a first-aid kit somewhere on this tub.”

Ellie looked past him toward the retreating mass of greenery and the trickle of smoke marking the dock. “Let's hope the other dead stay on that island.”

“And if, if they don't?”

“Then God help us.”


	3. You Are Alive When They Start to Eat You

One could only generously call it a road. Barely a Jeep track through red lateritic dirt that became a dark orange mud after a hard rain, their course wound circuitously through a labyrinth of nameless Nicaraguan hills punctuated by deep river valleys. All other things being equal, no one could have paid her enough to drive it, much less herd several dozen dinosaurs.

Unfortunately, things were far from equal. Not long after Nublar had dropped off the horizon, Ian and Alan had exhausted the profanity of several languages directed at a persistently temperamental engine. The whole affair had turned into several days of wind, waves, rain, yelling, bailing, pumping, crying, and screaming that still streamed together in Ellie's mind when it was quiet enough. Which was mercifully rare in the intermittent tracts of Central American rain forest.

Even now, after uncounted weeks since they'd fetched up on some obscure beach near the supposed Panamanian border, she could still see Ian's half-living face with its vacant gaze blazing with an unbridled hunger for the flesh of the living. It was one of many images that would be forever seared into her memory.

Lex standing wide-eyed and panting just a few feet from Ian's lifeless body, smoke curling from the barrel of a .44 Magnum clutched in her trembling hands. Tears streaming down the kids' faces as they knelt before their dying grandfather moments after he'd dubbed them the first Knights of Thunder. The look of horror on Lex's face the moment Tim had granted Hammond's final request. Flames chewing up the funeral pyres they'd set for Ian and John on that tiny beach they'd grounded on. Alan's expression the moment he'd laid eyes on InGen's mainland dockside warehouse full of juvenile dinosaurs and the half-dozen malinformed employees managing the whole ill-conceived affair. That had been but the tip of a very large and rapidly-growing iceberg.

Ellie nudged Sally toward the edge of the track. Thanks to near-constant browsing, the parasaur she'd adopted—or perhaps vise versa--had grown to the size of a large mule. Ellie rubbed the base of her neck, the slightly bristly light-olive-and-teal hide rough beneath her palm. The animal craned its neck around, looked at Ellie with big black eyes ringed with teal streaks, and grunted contentedly. She watched the long line of dinos and their humans squelch through the mud.

Why the animals had taken so well to their humans was still a mystery. Clearly, as Alan had grown fond of saying, estimates of dinosaur intelligence were greatly underestimated. Nearly as mysterious was the failure of the so-called Lysine Contingency. Ellie could think of any number of lab tests that could have explained that, tests that required equipment lost during the fiasco at InGen's mainland facility. Her working hypothesis was that the animals extracted lysine from their diets. Alan favored Ian's “life finds a way” philosophy. Ellie suspected both were correct.

Alan reined Asfaloth in beside her. The young Gallimimus snapped a cockroach out of the air, and tried to shake out the anemic rain-matted feathers beginning to sprout from his skin.

She met his gaze. A dozen thoughts passed between them. Guilty relief over Ian's absence. The words the man surely would have voiced in no uncertain terms: “You want to herd dozens of dinosaurs all the way back to California? No, no, what could possibly go wrong? Oh, wait, we just saw it, in living color!” Alan's own response to the initial suggestion: “That's the worst idea in the long, long history of bad ideas.”

Ellie looked back along the column of animals, all still technically InGen property, a technicality deteriorating along with the situation. Around them loomed grey trunks supporting a deep green canopy that cast everything in a verdant shade that did little to alleviate a humidity as oppressive as the constant threat of the Dead.

Yet another bead of sweat trickled down her back. “We could use a break,” she said.

“That clearing?” he said, nodding ahead to where the gloom gave way to an almost painful brightness.

“Should be as good a place as any. If we've shaken our pursuers.”

Alan nudged Asfaloth back into motion. Ellie followed.

A minute later, Lex thumped up on Sundancer, her toes dangling a foot from the ground.

“You doing okay?” she asked Lex.

“I guess.” She paused. “Okay, no, not really. It's hot, sticky, there are bugs everywhere, no real showers, and...I still don't believe you and Alan got me to ride a meat-o-saurus.”

“You two seem to be getting along.”

“Yeah, yeah, she chose me, blah, blah.” A pause. “I didn't mean that. Mostly. Okay, I know she's going to be the closest thing to a walking fortress, but...”

“...but you're still not convinced an Allosaurus is going to be any less temperamental than that tee-rex that tried to eat you.”

Lex nodded. “Something like that. And it's not like she's that intimidating yet, either.”

“I'm surprised we've made this much progress in their training.”

Lex rubbed Sundancer's neck. The animal grunted amiably. “She puts horses to shame.”

Ellie smiled. “That she does.” A minute later, she added, “Is that all?”

Lex scowled. “No,” she glowered.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Lex half-glared at her. Ellie suppressed a sigh. Barely a teenager, and the girl had already developed certain associated tendencies. She wondered how much of that was natural, and how much was a result of Hammond's death and the ensuing hardships. What had begun as a vacation had landed her at Ground Zero of what was shaping up to be the end of the Anthropocene. No, Ellie didn’t blame Lex for being irritable. Not one bit.

Silence fell, along with another drip of sweat off of Ellie's nose. She slapped at another mosquito. Damn, if they didn't pick up the pace a little and get out of this tropical climate, she was going to go crazy. Or catch malaria. It was a miracle the Death-virus was non-transmittable via mosquito. Or, for that matter, any of the other biting insects they'd encountered. Not the modern species, anyway. Thus far, Alan's working hypothesis--that nothing living would voluntarily bite the Dead--seemed consistent with the evidence.

Minutes later, the close rain forest gave way to an open pine woodland, the muddy road to damp rusty gravel. Tim thumped by wordlessly on Skywalker, his allosaur only a hand smaller than Lex's Sundancer.

Presently, the pines yielded to a broad open space at least a hundred yards across in both directions that sloped gently northward. Coarse grass carpeted the ground, grazed by two cows and several goats. The occasional palm tree jutted upward, shreds of animal hair waving lazily from their lower trunks. In the middle stood three structures, all built with rough-hewn planks, sided with plywood and corrugated metal, and supported by waist-high pylons in the regional idiom. Dark, paneless windows looked out from beneath the eaves of palm-thatched roofs. Weak smoke drifted from a tile chimney. A half-rusted pickup truck sat beside one of the buildings. Under a large blue tarp stretched between several trees sat another much newer-looking pickup, a trio of ATVs, and a pair of motorcycles. The track cut through a chest-high green wall of distinctive palmate leaves that occupied at least two thirds of the space.

“Is that...?” Lex asked.

“Yup,” said Ellie.

“Don't even think about it, Tim,” said Alan.

“Aw, man...” said Tim.

“I wonder if anyone's...”

Before Alan could finish his thought, a man stepped into the track and shouted angrily at them.

“Uh-oh,” said Ellie.

Alan craned his head around and called in Spanish, “Nobody touch anything!”

Several more men appeared at a run, all visibly armed. One man stood in the way and leveled a rifle. “Alto!” he commanded.

The column ground to a halt at the edge of the cannabis field. Men and women on both sides pointed pistols, rifles, shotguns, and crossbows at each other. Sally snorted uneasily. “Steady, girl,” Ellie said, rubbing the animal's neck.

A man emerged from one of the buildings, a swagger in his step. Enough gold hung from his neck to rival Mr. T. “What is this?” he demanded.

“Trespassers, señor,” one of the other men said.

The man thumped down a set of weathered stairs, took a few more steps forward and spit. “Trespassers, si?”

“Not intentionally,” said Alan in Spanish.

“Bring them here!” the man commanded, with an imperious gesture. His underlings herded the caravan across the open space to where their boss stood on the lowermost step. “Your weapons,” he said, “they are ours now.”

“I do not think so,” said Alan. “If you just let us be on our way, you have our word we will forget we ever saw you.”

The man laughed. “Your word? And that means what to me?”

Alan and Ellie looked at each other.

“We have no time to argue,” said Alan.

The man's eyes narrowed. “And why is that?”

“You do not want to know,” said Alan.

“Absolutely, I want to know! Now, you will tell me what all of this is.” He gestured at the dinos and their people.

“Refugees,” said Alan.

“From what?”

“From the Dead.” Ellie could almost hear the capital-M in the way he said 'Muertos.'

The man laughed. “The rumors, si? You believe them?”

“Shut up,” Lex growled.

He took three steps and pointed the gun at Lex. “Maybe I shoot the girl,” he said.

“Leave her alone, gilipollas,” Ellie snarled.

He swung the gun toward Ellie. “Or you?”

“Go to hell.”

“Hell? What do you know of hell?”

“More than you.”

“You are already there, escoria,” said Tim.

A wicked smile spread across his face. He lowered the gun and reached toward Lex with his free hand. “Or maybe we have some fun, si? While you watch.”

Ellie pointed her crossbow at the man. “Don't even think about it.”

“When we are finished.”

“She's thirteen,” said Alan.

“She looks ready to me, si?” He lunged toward Lex.

Lex reflexively shied way.

Sundancer snarled. She lunged forward, and bit the man hard on the arm.

He screamed, dropped the gun, and began pounding frantically on the allosaur's snout.

Two yards away, Skywalker spun about and bit a second man on the shoulder.

A third man made a move toward Ellie.

Sally made a series of particularly wet-sounded snorts, lowered her head and squirted something out of her nostrils.

Barely three feet away, the streams met and ignited. Liquid flame washed over her would-be assailant, and spilled onto the ATV behind him. Its tires caught. Moments later, it went up in a ball of flame, melting a hole in the tarp and scorching the nearby foliage.

The heat hit Ellie tangibly. A spark caught on the thatch. One of the tires bounded away into the cannabis and set it aflame. The man screamed, took a half-dozen staggering steps, and collapsed.

Ellie felt her jaw drop open as Sally backed up two paces and spit.

A flurry of bolts and bullets erupted, shattering what remained of the silence. Most missed their intended targets. A distinctive moan cut through the screaming.

Alan waved toward the river. “Go, go, go!” he shouted.

No one needed to be told twice.

Ellie recovered. She and Alan took up the rear. Off to the left, what looked like a deer track ran off through the forest a few yards from the riverbank. Ellie took one last look over her shoulder at the screaming, moaning, burning chaos, then charged after the others.

“Did you know a parasaur could do that?” she asked Alan.

He shook his head. “The most reliable research suggested that crest was for bugling.”

“I guess the dragon theorists were right.”

“Or Wu decided to have some fun.”

“Or a little of both.”

“Guys,” said Tim, “are we going to be walking all night again?”

Ellie looked over her shoulder again. Nothing met her gaze but a tunnel of green and to the left, the chocolate-colored Rio Coco. She shuddered. “We make for the crossing.”

“I thought Honduras closed the border.”

“Indefinitely,” Lex added.

“They did,” said Alan. “They did.”


	4. They Do Move in Herds

Sally fidgeted in an equine manner. “Steady, girl.” Ellie Sattler-Grant gently rubbed Sally's back just aft of the big female's shoulders, and returned her attention to the view eastward.

The low bluff on which she and Sally stood dropped off toward Ozona in southwestern Texas. Late-afternoon shadows stretched across the brushy ground and spilled off the hill's edge. For a couple of minutes, she watched a stream of figures shamble along a paved road and past a collection of light industrial businesses half a mile off. The air shimmered in a midsummer heat that drove a fetid breeze up the slope.

She spotted several of the locals pause in their goings-on to watch the approaching Dead. “Run,” Ellie muttered. “Just run! No, you idiots, run!”

Ellie watched a dead man grab a teenager in shorts and T-shirt and bite him on the arm. The kid screamed silently across the distance. A stegosaur with several dislodged plates latched onto the shoulder of a man in overalls and chewed. A mule grabbed a little girl's hand. The terrible moaning from scores of dead throats floated to her ears on the breeze.

“Damn,” she said at length.

“I don't like the sound of that,” said Alan.

“It's another herd.”

“That one up from Del Rio?” asked Alan.

“Probably.” She wrinkled her nose and winced at the smell. “Good thing we're downwind.”

“What else?”

“Traveling directly toward Ozona. Mostly humans and cattle. A few dogs and equines. A couple of deer. And a Diplodocus. At least sixty individuals. Most seem in more or less sound condition. I see lesions, missing limbs, a few exposed ribs, the usual. They've already bitten a few of the locals.”

Alan cursed half under his breath. “I hate herds.”

Ellie lowered her field glasses. Her boiled-leather body armor settled into place, cutting off the shred of breeze that flowed across her sweat-soaked clothing. She flipped her deerskin aventail several times to cool her neck.

“I feel like Donna Quixote,” she said.

“You look like her too,” Alan teased.

Ellie smirked at her husband and almost snickered. Despite the intervening years since Nublar, the sight of him astride a Gallimimus still amused her. She supposed it had something to do with the feathers that the animal's generation had somehow “remembered.” And not just some dull grey or brown like a grouse. No, Asfaloth sported iridescent blue-green like a peacock over most of his body, with grey-and-white streaking on his otherwise charcoal head, black rings around his eyes, a deep blue jay-like topknot, and russet feathers on his forelimbs, with black legs and what Ellie could only describe as a gunmetal-grey foofy feather-duster of a tail.

Sally ripped off another mouth full of rabbitbrush and chewed.

“It looks like another all-nighter,” said Ellie.

“Great,” said Alan, with an audible eye-roll. “But if Sally sneezes again...”

“It was just that one time.”

“Ellie, she set a grassland on fire.”

“One grassland.”

“In six different places.”

“Hey, it worked out.”

“And that first time, when she almost got us all high?”

“Almost, Alan, almost. Kind of a bummer, though, right?”

“If we'd been high...”

Ellie sighed. “I know, I know, we'd have been eaten. Besides, you're the one with those fond memories of the sixties.”

Alan smirked. “Those were good days.”

“What was that? Oh, yes. If you remember the sixties, you weren't there,” she teased.

He chuckled. “Very funny.”

She wheeled Sally about and they thudded back along a gravel road still barely damp from a mid-day cloudburst. What passed for shrubbery flanked the verge, the same plant community they'd been traversing for five monotonous weeks of undulating hills cut by a labyrinth of streams, arroyos, and dirt roads. A monotony they'd all welcomed after the debacle at the Reynosa-McAllen border crossing.

A half-mile back, Ellie and Alan found the clan, all eighteen of them, in the final stages of an early dinner. Several white-gas stoves sat on folding tables heating dishwater in the same pots that had been used for the day's stew. A few plates held fresh cornbread and the usual assortment of sliced summer sausage, hard cheese, SPAM, and sun-dried tomatoes and chilis, much of it salvaged from the ruins of McAllen and carried in one of the pair of wagons that had begun life as the back-ends of pickup trucks.

“We saved some for you!” Tim called as the pair reined in.

“Don't get too comfortable, everyone,” said Alan.

“You're kidding,” said Lex.

“It's not the San Antonio herd, is it?” Tim asked.

Ellie shook her head. “Del Rio.”

“We'll have to cold camp another two hours north,” said Alan.

Ellie gave Sally the 'sit' command, and slid off her saddle blanket. She sliced open a piece of the bread and drizzled some honey on it. Alan sliced another and piled on a few pieces of salami and cheese.

A few dozen paces away, the dinos munched on grasses, the shrubbery, or fence posts, or rooted around from whatever lurked below ground, depending on their various dispositions.

“What about Ozona?” asked Pedro.

Ellie repeated what she'd seen, watching every face fall.

“When will this be over?” asked Maria.

Alan sighed heavily and shook his head. “I think it's safe to say, and the evidence so far supports this, that we're entering a new epoch. One dominated by death. The Thanatocene.”


	5. Amarillo by Morning

Acrid smoke from things never meant to burn towered above the western edge of Amarillo. More smoke curled from grass stubble and charred bodies in an adjacent fallow field Sally, Loki, and Sleipnir had torched.

The wind mercifully shifted, the grey haze replaced by a buff cloud of blown dust. Off to the south, several dust-devils spun across newly-blackened acreage, lofting white ash into the air. A few score yards to the north, the tail ends of ten graffiti-adorned Cadillacs jutted up from the ground, part of an art installation created in the 1970's. Beyond that, sunlight glinted off the metal and glass of vehicles abandoned on Interstate-40.

Between the cars and the verge of W county Rd. 34, rows of shriveled shin-high corn stalks and several dozen tents, mostly dome-types, quivered in the wind. The bodies of scores of humans and animals littered the fields on both sides of the road. Some of them still tried to drag themselves across sunbaked dirt, scorched earth, or searing asphalt with limbs shattered or missing.

A few dozen paces away, Sundancer stomped gingerly across the field of Cadillac Ranch, her dark olive hide gradating to a tawny underbelly, flanks striped a deep blue-green, a dark brick-red blaze splashed across the bridge of her snout and spread onto the horny protrusions above her eyes.

Lex sat her bareback with the long-practiced ease expected of beast and rider having grown up together. Behind her hung the small canvas, denim, and leather bags and quivers holding her weapons and a small quantity of personal gear, the only tack either allosaur would tolerate. Sunlight glinted off her helm, greaves, vambraces, and the two-foot-long hammered leaf-spring blade lashed with rawhide to the end of a solid-core bamboo pole. She held it in both gauntleted hands, point down.

Ellie watched Lex casually shove the blade through the face of a once-pretty girl in a tattered prom dress. With practiced ease, she turned the body's collapse into a controlled arc before wrenching the steel free. Moments later, she drove the blade through the skull of a half-legless spaniel.

Across the way, Tim worked the field from Skywalker's moss-green, rust-mottled back.

Ellie coughed and took a small sip of water, just enough to cut the foul taste of burned things she didn’t care to contemplate. She briefly swished it around her mouth before swallowing. Even with the tang of added iodine tablets, it barely helped.

_Next time_, she thought, _we really should add some lemon juice_. She added that to her mental shopping list.

She returned her attention to the knot of dirty, exhausted, and visibly malnourished people standing on the verge. Some still ogled the dinos with the usual mix of wonder and terror. Others cradled wounds or the heaving bodies of companions dying of their own. The rest stood riveted to Alan and his long-practiced sales pitch delivered from beneath Asfaloth's watchful gaze.

“But we can outrun this, si?” interrupted a middle-aged woman in a dirty dress that might once have been a calico pattern. “Go somewhere it hasn't spread yet? Please, please tell us...”

“Look, Missuz...?” said Alan.

“Rodrigues,” said the woman.

“Missuz Rodrigues. We've been over this a dozen times in twice as many minutes.”

Ellie tuned out the ensuing arguments, ones she'd heard more times than she'd bothered to count. Sally snorted. She reached up and firmly rubbed the parasaur's rough, pebbly neck. The animal craned her crested head around, grunted at Ellie, and gently nudged her in a curiously feline manner. Ellie stroked the animal's cobalt-mottled olive snout. “Yeah, me too.”

A dozen yards away, her husband continued his argument with three dozen refugees. Not that she thought it would do much good. It never had. No one wanted to believe what was happening. Not until they simply could no longer deny it. And by then, it was always too late.

That had always been the trouble with the fantastical, the unbelievable. No one had believed that a glacial flood had scoured out eastern Washington state’s Channeled Scablands. No one had believed that Hitler and his cronies had committed systematic genocide. No one had believed that dinosaurs could be resurrected from extinction. No one believed that the dead had been reanimating to relentlessly pursue the living. Yet all those things had happened anyway, and copious evidence existed to support it all.

Oh, she, Alan, and the others had warned anyone and everyone they’d met along the way. Not that it really seemed to matter. They’d always been at least one step behind the vectors, with notable exceptions Ellie could have counted on two hands. And in every one of those instances, the virus had caught up during one of many frustrating periods of indecision marked by committee meetings.

But still they tried. Every...single...day. If they couldn’t outrun it, they had determined to outlast it.

Which had brought them to the outskirts of what remained of Amarillo and the three-dozen terrified survivors huddled on a dry roadside verge beneath the shadow of a wind-shredded smoke plume from one of many fires still steadily consuming the city a week after someone, according to rumor, had lobbed a Molotov cocktail at one of the Dead. Three dozen out of a hundred and fifty thousand, according to the “Welcome of Amarillo” sign.

Between deaths from the virus, violence during the ensuing panic, and a mass exodus, only two kinds of people remained in any community: the incredibly tenacious; and the incredibly lucky. And they tended to be split between those still in denial, those who’d tried to tough it out, and those who’d simply been stuck.

“I know you’re not going to like this,” Alan continued, “but here’s what has to happen...”

Ellie suppressed a sigh. Alan’s well-polished ultimatum seldom went over well. Still, he usually managed to convince enough people to his point of view that he still considered it worth the effort. Which was why he’d always been the one to do the public relations work and why she’d gone into paleobotany in the first place. Until recently, it had simply been easier for her to deal with the dead than with the living.

An hour, and a considerable amount of arguing, later, most of the survivors lugged their meager possessions onto the roadbed in the Radio Flyer and garden wagons, shopping carts, and bicycles they'd used to haul them out of the city in the first place. The usual screening for things like lice, fleas, and Giardia took another half hour.

Of the most recent “new recruits,” as Tim and Lex both insisted on calling them, only three knew anything about the outdoors. Two of those were a father and his son in the Boy Scouts, the third an ex-Marine. Three others knew their way around firearms and carried at least three weapons each. The others—a recently-retired reference librarian, a mechanic, a machinist, two stay-at-home moms and their children ranging from toddlers to almost Tim’s age, a postal carrier, a tax accountant, two janitors, and a landscaper—wouldn’t have made Tim’s “Zombie Apocalypse Team,” as he was ever-so-fond of putting it.

Lex thumped onto the roadbed a dozen yards from where the refugees loaded their possessions onto one of the styracosaur wagons and reined in.

The Boy Scout craned his neck up at Lex and let out a low whistle. “Hey there!”

Lex nodded and smiled. Even across two dozen yards, Ellie could see the girl's eyes light up. “Hey yourself,” she said.

_Oh, boy_, Ellie thought, _here we go_.

The young man shifted the large internal-frame pack leaning against his hip, and straightened his hopelessly dirt-and-sweat-stained uniform. He succeeded mostly in shoving his Smokey-Bear hat a little more firmly onto his head, working most of the considerable slack out of his once-khaki shirt, and evening out the ends of his hastily-wound stained neckerchief.

Sundancer turned, lowered her head, peered at the boy, and snorted.

“Sundancer,” Lex scolded, “he's okay. Just chill.”

Sundancer craned her head around, blinked at Lex, and snorted again.

“I said, he's okay. Chill.”

The allosaur returned her gaze to the boy, grunted, and apparently decided to agree with Lex.

“Sir Alexis Murphy, Knight of Thunder,” she said.

“Haakon Snow, Eagle Scout,” said the boy.

“Pleased to meet you. I'd offer to let you ride with me, but, well, Sundancer is a little temperamental.”

Haakon nodded. “So I noticed.” Then, “I, uh, don't suppose she'd let me, um, pet her?”

“She might.” She gave the 'sit' command. Once Sundancer had settled, Lex slid easily from the allosaur's back and stood with her spear butt planted dramatically on the asphalt, looking to all the world like some sort of Mad Max Valkyrie.

“Now,” she continued, “extend your hand slowly. If she growls, freeze.”

“Okay?”

Ellie watched Haakon slowly reach out toward Sundancer and her twitching muzzle.

“What are they doing?” Alan asked.

“I think she's getting a boyfriend.”

Alan looked sharply at Ellie, then back at Sundancer. Haakon gently lay his palm on the allosaur's snuffling nose and gently stroked it.

“She likes you,” said Lex. “You're only the second person she's ever let touch her without losing body parts.”

Haakon looked back at Lex. “So tell me,” he said, “how'd a nice girl like you get to be so mind-numbingly terrifying?”

Lex tipped her head back and laughed.

Ellie smiled and shook her head. _Forget the gun-polishing_, she thought, _any boy who can get past that dinosaur and her rider in one piece is good enough for me_.

Some time later, as the city and its smoking ruin dropped behind them, Lex raised her alto voice high.

Amarillo by morning, dead like San Anton  
Everything that I've got is just what I've got on  
When that sun is high in that Texas sky  
I surely know I must beware  
Amarillo by morning, Amarillo, I've been there

Lex's song floated over the breeze, carrying a beauty and the sort of anguish peculiar to sixteen-year-old girls in stark contrast with the smoke rising from the eponymous city receding slowly behind them.

Ellie listened as the remainder of the song rolled out of her foster daughter's throat, lyrics slightly altered, and exchanged another knowing glance with Alan before returning her attention to their westward road.


	6. On the Way to Nowhere

Ellie reined in at a jog in Rd. C, where it curved toward the right and then again leftward around a cluster of buildings before continuing southwestward toward a set of hills in the near distance. Alan drew up beside her. To the rear, the crunch of gravel and creak of leather slowed and stopped as the caravan came to a halt.

Dust drifted away on a subtle breeze. For several pregnant moments, only the low grasses and sparse brush along the verge moved.

To the left and off the road a few dozen yards sat a long, sheet-roofed building. A chest-high cinder-block wall jutted out from the building's far side. Beyond and to its right lay a small depression surrounded by low greenery, and Deposito Creek a hundred yards beyond that.

To the right of the depression, a low fieldstone berm marked the grounds of the Church of the Immaculate Conception. A gap marked the entry. The sheet-roofed building appeared in good repair, though grass grew through cracks in the concrete pad before the narthax. White-washed wood framing offset the double door, standing out from the large-block adobe-and-mortar construction above which rose a modest white-washed steeple. To the rear of the yard marched a few rows of headstones. Ellie half-expected the ground around them to begin moving.

Immediately to the right of the church yard stood another long, low building roofed in heavily rust-streaked metal sheeting. A couple of small trailers, a recent-model pickup truck, and the usual scattering of junk occupied the adjacent ground.

To the right of that and across a one-lane drive, a well-tended split-rail fenced yard with several large and healthy trees partially obscured what looked like a very nice modern villa, its terra-cotta tile roof contrasting with the foliage.

To the right of that and across Rd. C sat another rusted sheet-roofed building surrounded by a head-high sun-bleached wooden rail fence.

“Well?” said Alan. “What do you think?”

Ellie pulled the bandanna away from her nose and let it settle around her neck. She took a deep breath, held it for a few moments, then slowly exhaled. “Smells okay.” She paused for a moment to listen. “The animals agree. So far, I'd say it's promising.”

Alan exhaled heavily and slowly scanned their surroundings. At length, he said, “Too quiet.”

Ellie looked around. “Maybe they're hiding.”

“Or dead. Or worse.”

Ellie grimaced. “I don't know what's worse. That there IS something worse than death, or that we're all used to it.” She stole a glance toward the rest of their band, where Tim and Lex sat their allosaurs at the head of a rag-tag caravan that stretched halfway to New Mexico Country Rd. 39. “Especially the kids,” she added.

Alan grunted. “Right,” he said. He turned in the saddle, pointed at Lex and Tim, and gave them the hand signals for the usual site recon.

Both creatures thumped past, their riders bringing bow and crossbow to the ready.

Tim and Lex had barely ridden a dozen meters when a gunshot split the near-silence. All eyes turned toward the house and a light and rapidly-dissipating cloud of smoke. All weapons swiveled in that direction.

“Alright,” called Alan, “we know you're there and we know where you are. We come in peace, so why don't you come on out and we'll talk.”

Ellie heard some muttering from the same direction. At length, a man and a boy a little younger than Tim stepped out of the shadows, both with rifles in hand.

“Holy shit, are those dinosaurs?” the boy blurted in Spanish.

“Watch your mouth,” the man muttered to the boy.

“Sorry, Papa, but...but...sorry.”

“It is okay,” Ellie answered in kind. “They will not hurt you.”

“Much,” Tim added.

The man looked from Ellie to Tim, then back to Ellie.

“Well,” said Alan, continuing in Spanish, “I should add that they will not hurt you unless you bother them. They can be a little...temperamental.” Alan sounded unsure about his translation of the last word.

Ellie noticed her husband hadn't mentioned the various fatalities that had been inflicted by the dinosaurs over the last few years. Never mind that most of those were because some idiot tried to mess with the animals, even after being warned, multiple times in some cases.

“As long as you respect them,” said Lex, “they respect you.”

_That's putting it diplomatically_, Ellie thought.

“Look,” said Alan, “why do we not all lower our weapons, and we can talk about it.”

“This is private property,” said the man.

“I thought,” said Ellie, “it was more of an historical trust.” She wasn't sure she'd rendered the idea properly into Spanish, but the man's expression told her it was close enough.

“You are not welcome here.”

“We are just passing through,” said Alan.

“Besides,” said Tim, “there are two of you and thirty of us.”

The man and boy exchanged glances. The man exhaled heavily, then raised the barrel of his rifle toward the sky.

“Papa...”

“It is okay, son.”

“But...”

The man turned to face his son and spoke to him in low tones. Ellie caught a couple of words here and there, enough to infer the salient points. Basically that, like Tim had not-so-subtly implied, the defenders might be able to kill two of whom they clearly considered to be interlopers before being cut down themselves.

At length, the man turned back. “I apologize. It is just that...well, we have heard of many bad things. Things that...should not be repeated. If you know my meaning.”

Ellie nodded. “If it makes you feel better, if you let us stay here a night or two, we can help out with any work that needs doing, and fill you in on what has been happening.”

The man looked from Ellie to Alan to Lex and Tim, his gaze taking in the rest of the caravan before looking back to Ellie. He nodded. “I do not think I can stop you, si?”

“Probably not,” said Tim.

Alan cleared his throat.

“Sorry.”

“What our son means to say,” said Ellie, “is that we could, theoretically, run roughshod over you.”

“Rough-shod?” said the man.

“Um...” Ellie searched for an equivalent idea in Spanish.

“Ah. Si. It is as you say.”

“But,” said Alan, “we are not common bandits. And so we will respect you. And so we ask permission to stay here. If you still refuse, we will move on promptly.”

“We...ah...have rules.”

“Which we mean to discuss, of course,” said Ellie.

An hour later, the wagons sat lined up side by side in an expansive gravel parking pad on the northwest side of the house. Several members of the band saw to the few conventional animals in space lent for them in the paddock north of Rd. C. The dinos were secured in the long maintenance yard just north of the church. Alan had posted the usual watch rotation while others worked at various other camp duties.

“It is impressive,” said the man, Carlos DeVitis.

“It works,” said Alan casually.

“Most of the time,” Ellie added.

“The new people...uh...some of them have had a little trouble adjusting.”

“But it has only been one week since Amarillo.”

“Ah,” said Carlos, “Amarillo. It burned, I am told.”

Alan nodded. “Do we want to know what happened to the people who told you?”

Carlos shrugged. “Some we learned by radio. AM band. Others...three days ago, five guys on motorcycles rode through here. Tried to make trouble. Manuel...my son...he shot one. The others, they left. But that one, he got up the next day. He looked horrible. Tried to attack us. Manuel shot him again, but he kept coming. I hit him over the head with a crow-bar, and he dropped like a sack of onions.”

Carlos crossed himself. “We burned the body where it lay, and then buried it out there.” He made a vague gesture toward the north.

Ellie and Alan shared a strained glance.

“That,” said Ellie, “is the first thing we need to discuss.”

Half an hour later, Carlos sat stiffly in his chair, jaw clenched, gazing wide-eyed at Alan. At length, he said, “Madre de Dios.”

He ran a hand through his hair and muttered something in Spanish under his breath.

“Papa,” said Manuel, “that cannot be true. Can it?”

“It can and it is. You saw it for yourself. It is...unbelievable, si. But believe it we must. For your mother.”

Ellie nodded slightly. She made a mental note to avoid asking. The man's tone suggested his wife had died well before the Thanatocene, but recently enough that the pain was still raw.

* * *

Ellie looked down on the Church of the Immaculate Conception, little more than a white block in the near distance amid the expanse of sparse grasses and sagebrush she’d once felt might never end.

“He's nuts, you know,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Alan, “I know. But it's his decision to make.”

She sighed. “Those defenses of his won't last long.”

“Are you sure?”

She shook her head. “Not really, no. But barbed wire, field stone, angle iron, and cinder blocks? I know it's all he had, but still.”

“What he really needs is not what we could supply.”

Ellie nodded. Several of the people who'd joined up in Amarillo had elected to stay behind. More hands meant more eyes. And more eyes meant better defense. Above all, however, the man had resourcefulness and determination, two of the best force multipliers after the element of surprise and rapid-fire weaponry.

Ellie nudged Sally into a turn away from where the road crested the hills west of the little compound and into the lowering sun like the proverbial cowgirl. She guessed they had four, maybe five hours of travel time before stopping for camp.

Tim broke out in song.

Where are we going? I don't know  
When will we get there? I ain't sure  
All that I know is I am on my way....


	7. Life Finds a Way

Ellie squeezed the trigger. _TUNG!_ Recoil thumped into her jacket's heavy padding. A hunting-pointed quarrel flickered out, briefly visible as it leaped the distance to her target. A moment later, its head whipped back and what had been a twenty-something man in a tattered business suit collapsed into the snow. Silence followed.

“I think we got 'em all,” Tim called from across the road.

Ellie gazed around at the carnage. Scores of bodies, most of them human, lay scattered about in a foot of trampled snow mixed with mud and whatnot. A dozen columns of grey smoke drifted up from clumps of vegetation torched by one or another of the parasaurs.

A man clad head-to-toe in forest camo barked, “Snow! Get your ass back on that dinosaur!”

Ellie looked up the road a few score yards. Haakon stood on the ground holding the shaft of a spear shoved through the head of a ham-strung Dead deer. His styracosaur shuffled irritably nearby.

John Payne rode his bay gelding a few paces closer to the boy. “I said,” he continued, “get your ass back on that dinosaur! And you stay there until you get better armor, do you understand?”

“I was just...” Haakon began.

“I said, _DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!_” John bellowed.

Ellie winced slightly. She’d never have known just by looking at the man that he’d made a career as a Basic Training instructor in the Marine Corps.

“Sir, yes, sir!” Haakon said.

“Good! Now, do you want us to have to chop off a body part like we had to do to Chad last month? Like we’re going to have to do those two?” He pointed off toward a trio of field medics tending to Bill and Ted Kleine a couple hundred yards away.

“Sir, no, sir!”

“That’s what I thought.” A pause. “Why are you still on the ground, Snow? You’re coming back out here on cleanup detail tomorrow.”

“But...”

“And don’t but me! For that, it’s fifty burpees when we get back to the fort, and that’s after you see do your animal, now move!”

Haakon wrenched his spear out of the deer skull and half-vaulted onto Spike’s back.

Ellie sighed, her breath coming in a heavy plume of steam. Through it, she surveyed the landscape and the results of the day's work. Dark lumps littered the field, three-hundred-odd carcasses that had been everything from people to wildlife to livestock to pets. All of which would have to be burned where it lay. So much for using every part of the buffalo, she thought.

Amid the tufts of fur and shreds of clothing, the people of Questa and her own milled about, spear-heads twinkling in the late-afternoon light. The occasional fire flared up white-hot where one of the preliminary clean-up crewmembers had dowsed a corpse with the mixture of kerosene, magnesium shavings, and phosphorus powder used for incinerating the Dead. Smoke rose lazily into the air.

She counted roughly two dozen such fires, a drop in the bucket to be sure. But it would have to do until morning, and each one was one fewer corpse leaking its black plague-ridden gunk into the soil.

“Back to base, everyone!” she called.

Tim lifted a cow-horn to his lips and blew a series of long-and-short blatts.

Ellie watched people mount equines and dinos and begin picking their way across the field toward the road. A few struck out southward on Nordic skis, rifle barrels and bows protruding from small day-packs.

She nudged Sally into a slow plod. The dinosaur's broad feet pressed the snow into ice with each step. The others filed onto the road and fell into a loose column, the thumping steps of dinosaur and horse drumming arrhythmically through the chilly air. Westward, the sun hung just three diameters over the toe of Guadalupe Mt. South, its evening rays blazing orange-pink off the snow-blanketed landscape and setting the Taos Mountains that rose up to the east into a coral blaze.

Lex raised her voice in song, quickly joined by others.

Ancient vows to order kneel  
A warden's call to blood and steel  
Legion lines to shield the frail  
Behind the plate and mail...

They filed south on Hwy. 522, the asphalt and gravel visible where horse and dino had churned the overlying snow earlier that day, through the ruins of the upper part of Questa. A couple dozen piles of charred wreckage poked out of the snow, marking where buildings had been. Beside a few of them stood signs, some intact, others melted into lumps of barely-recognizable plastic. Only St Anthony's Catholic Church a few hundred yards off the road remained intact.

Sally's feet crunched through the already-freezing snow crust and into the powder below, all the way down the grade to the narrow valley and the farmland squeezed between the Red River to the south and the molybdenum mine to the north.

By the time Ellie and the rest made their final approach, the mid-December sun had passed behind the mountain, casting the valley in shadow. Above it, snow-shrouded Flag Mountain and the peaks of the Taos Range still blazed pink-orange.

A short time later, torch fires blazed to life around the perimeter of what had been the Questa Lodge & RV Park. Sally thumped across Llama Rd. to the Lodge's main gate, a massive timber sliding door set on rollers guided by rails mounted to a cinder-block gatehouse.

When they'd first arrived a month earlier, three-quarters of the work had already been done. From the gatehouse to the Red River, a wall of fieldstone and cinder block followed the road's verge, its footing set directly on the pre-existing gravel apron. In the other direction, more rock and block merged in two dozen yards into a palisade of pine logs sunk into the ground and bound together with steel cable. The palisade ran straight north to a drainage ditch, then followed that northwestward to another short section of block spanning a cut-off drive, then more palisade to another stone-and-block wall and gatehouse at the verge of Hwy. 522, then more palisade arcing back toward the river. Every fifty yards, a timber-built tower rose above the wall. The whole thing gave the appearance of a marriage between an eighteenth-century Army fort and a Medieval castle.

All in all, the fortification enclosed all of the grounds of the Lodge, the long cinder-block building that had housed the dollar and hardware stores, and a couple of broad swaths of what had been open field, now occupied by a variety of structures.

Ellie ducked beneath the gate's lintel, the maneuver's difficulty growing along with her belly.

“Evening, Ellie,” a man said from the guard tower.

“Evening, Dave,” she replied.

“Status report?” he asked.

“We'll need a clean-up detail north of Old Town tomorrow.”

“Damn. That's the third time in as many months.”

She sighed. “Tell me about it. Oh,” she added over her shoulder, “Bill and Ted were bitten. Alan will fill you in.”

Dave swore colorfully. Ellie didn't bother with her usual snark.

Ellie followed the broad, well-worn path past the building that still housed the Lodge's original owners, its offices, and the communal showers. Sally tore off a juniper sprig on the way by.

To the left, several more cabins had been added to the original six, and the rough-hewn pine bones of several more gleamed half-finished in the evening light. Smoke trickled from earthenware tile chimneys up into a clear sky where a few stars already shone. More cabins in various stages of construction and several massive barns stood to the right. Beyond those and out of sight lay the archery range. Ahead stood more cabins and barns and the rifle range and between them, the former dollar-hardware-store, repurposed into a multi-use building.

Ellie brought Sally to a halt, climbed down the ten-foot drop to the ground, and grunted at the pressure in her knees. Damn, she thought, I'm almost too big to be doing this.

She leaned against the edge of a large rolling door mounted to hanging rollers and shoved. It moved easily on well-greased wheels. A puff of warm air washed over her.

“Okay, girl,” she said, “in we go.” She nudged Sally through the large bay door that had been cut into the end of the building. The big parasaur thumped alongside her into the somewhat warmer interior.

A thick layer of straw covered the concrete floor. A pair of Coleman lanterns hung from posts, one on each side of the building. At the far end, a freshly-built plywood wall separated the barn area from a living space.

Four little parasaurs, each already the size of a large dog, leaped excitedly to their feet and bobbed rapidly up and down, waving their tails in a curiously canine manner and letting out high-pitched noises like a cross between eagle and barn owl. Sally lowered herself to the floor and the little ones began suckling.

Ellie shook her head slowly. It still amazed her how much of what they thought they knew about dinosaurs had turned out to be wrong. Who knew a parasaur could hold a clutch of viable eggs inside its own body for a year? Who knew they nursed their young? And who knew they breathed fire after a fashion?

Ellie shoved the door closed again and undid what passed for saddlery--basically a horse blanket and a rope ladder held on with tie-down straps--and pulled it off. Sally blinked her large, dark eyes at Ellie, snorted, then turned away to munch on a block of hay.

Ellie chuckled. She rolled up the tack and shoved it onto a dedicated shelf built against the wall. She rubbed Sally, peered at the youngsters in the semi-gloom, then walked toward the door set into the wooden wall, slid it open, and stepped through, shutting it again behind her.

Inside, another Coleman lantern blazed from its place at the center of the room. Three kerosene hurricane lanterns hung on the walls and at least a dozen evergreen-scented pillar candles sat flickering on several tables. Large plate-glass windows along one side spilled failing daylight into the room. Above, a plywood sleeping platform and storage area occupied the space where a false ceiling and HVAC had been. Mismatched furnishing represented a wide variety of tastes held by their original owners. Clashing area rugs in patterns and colors that might have been popular in the '60's and '70's, randomly stained with whatever had been spilled on them by their previous owners, covered a commercial tile floor.

The warmth almost hit her like a wave. She sighed.

“Good or bad?”

Ellie smiled at Brad, a man in his early thirties recovering from a torn ACL. “Both, I guess,” she said, then added, “The Klein boys were bitten.”

“Oh, geez. How bad?”

“Bill lost an arm. Ted...” She swallowed. “You'll have to ask the Doc.”

Ellie hung her weapons on a peg and PolarFleece-lined deerskin shooting gloves on a cubby near the door, and peeled off her outerwear, hanging llama-wool scarf, leather Mad-Bomber hat, and oversized GoreTex parka on pegs near a masonry stove at the center of the space. Her boiled-leather armor took more time. That she draped over a wooden saw-horse a few paces from the stove, vambraces on pegs beside her hat and coat.

Across the room, Brad nodded and turned back to a wood-burning iron cooking stove, patterned after models used in the nineteenth century, to stir something, probably more chili, in a large kettle.

Ellie grabbed a pair of furry slippers and sat down on an overstuffed chair to begin the laborious task of unbuckling her knee-high leather boots.

“Need help?” Brad asked.

“Nah, I got it. More or less.”

“Looks a little more than last time.”

“Well, I'm a little more pregnant than last time, so there's that.”

“How can you be more pregnant? I thought it was sort of an all or nothing thing.”

Ellie shot him a look.

He raised his hands in wordless surrender, and went back to the cooking.

Ellie had just finished with her leathers when the door slid open. Tim and Lex practically rolled into the room. Ellie almost asked if they'd secured their animals properly, but held her tongue.

“You okay, Mom?” said Lex.

Ellie nodded. “It's just that pregnancy and armor don't mix too well. That might have been my last ride for a while.”

“But we need you out there,” Tim protested.

Ellie nodded in agreement. “You're not wrong,” she said.

“Besides,” said Lex, “you're a shield maiden!”

Ellie chuckled. “That's shield matron, thank-you very much,” she said, patting her baby bulge.

“Hey, Brad,” said Tim.

“Howdy, Tim. Alexis. Where's your boyfriend?”

“Sarge is chewing him out,” said Lex.

“What, again? What’d he do this time?”

Ellie said, “He got off of Spike.”

“He’s gonna get bit if he keeps that up.”

“That’s what John said.”

“Kid’s reckless.”

“He’s young.”

Brad shrugged. “I suppose.”

“Chili again?” Tim asked.

“Yup.”

“Cool.”

“Not off my stove, it ain't.”

All of them chuckled.

* * *

Another dull impact just missed Ellie’s bladder. She briefly clenched her jaw.

“You okay over there? Can I get you a stool or something?”

Ellie looked at Dave Jones across Tower 24’s upper platform. She leaned against the cinder-block battlement and exhaled. “No, I’m okay.”

“You sure? You don’t look okay. You look...” He trailed off.

“I look what, pregnant?”

His face fell. Ellie twisted around with effort and followed his gaze westward. A single mule cart trotted up Hwy. 522 at a brisk pace. A pair of heads protruded from its side-boards. Even from her angle, she could see the red cross on its white disk painted on the side. Behind it trotted Spike and Sundancer, both riderless. Ellie swore under her breath.

“Stay here,” said Dave. He pivoted on his heel and half-jumped down the stair-ladder in the platform’s rough-hewn plank floor.

“The hell I will,” Ellie growled. She swung her crossbow over her back and labored after him.

It took her what felt like forever to climb down through a near-darkness pierced by daylight spilling through open windows facing the compound’s interior. The space still smelled of fresh-cut pine and the single pine-pitch torch flickering in a glass-enclosed wall sconce. Vibrations from the nearby gate's massive hinges shuddered through the timbers and raised voices, too muffled for coherence, exchanged a briefly heated debate about something before the clopping of hooves began to receed.

Her forearms and quads burned lightly by the time she stepped out into the bright December afternoon sun.

_At least I’m getting a good workout_, she thought.

She tromped across the compound, hobnail boots clicking on the intermittent icy patches. She arrived at Doc’s office—an A-frame structure a stone’s throw from the park’s office building--near-breathless. Tara had already led Spike away toward his barn and Sundancer fidgeted beside the empty cart, its mule snorting in the dinosaur's presence. Ellie gave the allosaur a respectful berth and ducked inside a detached cinder-block building.

The expected chaos assaulted her senses. In the corner, a raised brazier held small pine logs flickering over a bed of coals from which protruded the long handles of several implements Ellie reluctantly recognized. The sharp tang of bleach and the iron tang of blood melded with days-old soot.

Over a blood-stained patch of concrete flooring two figures writhed noisily on stainless steel tables.

Doc’s assistant George started a pair of morphine drips while several others, including Lex, held down the patients.

Haakon lay wide-eyed, jaws clenched tightly around a stout pine stick. His left leg ended below the knee.

Lex, still in full armor, looked up with a tear-streaked face, her jaw set, lips pressed tightly closed. Most of her usual girlishness had gone from behind her blue-green eyes, replaced with cares and worries beyond her seventeen years. On her armored shoulders rested burdens she should never have had to bear.

Doc glared over wire-framed glasses. One grey eyebrow rose toward a green surgical cap. “Missuz Grant,” he said gruffly, “you shouldn’t be in here. We have a waiting room, if you don’t mind.”

Ellie almost protested, but thought better of it. She nodded and retreated back to into the late-afternoon winter chill. She’d seen and done worse, and Doc knew it. But it was his operating theater, and she knew that just as well. She’d just be in the way of his team and she knew that, too. Those were in addition to the usual biohazard associated with the plausibly-infected.

Sundancer reclined on her haunches. Lex’s still-strung bow hung in its case beside a quiver nearly empty of the heavy helical-headed arrows used against the Dead. The dinosaur snorted.

“Yeah,” said Ellie. “Me, too.”

She paced for a little while until her feet and lower back convinced her to seek the waiting room. She padded around the building, and clomped across its covered rough-hewn plank porch with its flower pots full of hardy succulents and dormant bulbs.

Inside resembled the waiting rooms of most small medical clinics Ellie had visited. Various magazines, all at least two years out of date, lay disheveled on a small coffee table off the center of the room. Between that and the nearest wall sat a dozen or so chairs with mismatched cushions, some water-stained. Several pieces of artwork, all made by locals before or since the Thanatocene, hung on the bare pine walls or sat on the table or the reception counter. Along the other wall sat a few more chairs and an iron wood-burning stove. A few pieces of split juniper gave off a pungent scent. Opposite the door stretched a waist-high reception counter decorated for Christmas and staffed by a frazzled-looking young woman in her early twenties.

Several people already occupied the stove-warmed space. She recognized them as friends and family of Jane Cobb, the young woman on the other table. All wore the same expression of terror and premature grief Ellie had too-often seen on the faces of the bitten and their acquaintances. One blew her nose into a handkerchief.

Ellie nodded to them and crossed to the counter. “Wendy,” she said.

The girl looked up and shoved a lock of auburn hair away from hazel eyes. “Missuz Grant,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not over yet.”

Wendy just nodded, a gesture that reminded Ellie poignantly of the effect the Thanatocene had left on the survivors, people passing through its gullet irrevocably changed. Ellie glanced at the room’s other occupants, searching their eyes for a glimmer of hope, all they’d have while they waited for Doc to bring them news.

Ted’s funeral the previous fortnight still weighed on everyone’s hearts and minds, a weight that grew with Bill, and now Jane and Haakon, adding to the growing number of amputees.

The door burst open again. Olaf Snow stormed across the room. “Where is he?” he demanded.

“Mister Snow,” said Ellie, “you’re heating the rest of Questa.” She nodded toward the door.

Olaf turned around, glared at Ellie, but stomped over to shut the door, perhaps a little more forcefully than was necessary, before repeating his demand to Wendy.

“He’s in surgery, Mister Snow,” Wendy said.

“I have to see him. I have to...”

“Olaf,” said Ellie gently, “Alexis is with him. Doc chased me out. If you go in there, you’ll be in the way, too. Besides, Sundancer is loitering out back. The best way to help your son is to just wait.”

“Wait? I can’t!”

“You can, and you will,” said Ellie sternly.

“You don’t understand. You...”

“...will slap you silly if you don’t get a hold of yourself. You know I can and you know I will.”

Olaf ran a hand through his hair and exhaled through pursed lips.

“You don’t have to stay here. Go split some firewood or something. Someone will come find you.”

Olaf half-glared at Ellie. He clenched and unclenched his jaw several times, then spun on the ball of a foot and stormed out.

* * *

Ellie watched Olaf slam an eight-pound maul into a half-round of pine. It cleaved into two unequal halves and sprang apart, cartwheeling briefly before clunking to the ground. He wrenched the axe out of the round of black locust he’d been using as a chopping block, picked up one of the pine halves, and set it on the block. He lined up with a check in the wood and swung. The wood cracked apart. He picked up the pieces and tossed them onto an impressive pile of fresh wedges.

He looked up at her and glared.

Ellie ignored it. “He'll live. Doc says he's in a lot of pain, though.”

“No thanks to you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your husband chopped my son’s leg off!”

“Alan saved Haakon’s life!

Olaf shot her another look and returned to his work. After half a round, he glowered, “Why are you still here?”

Ellie rolled her eyes. “Because I care.”

“That's why you let my son be bitten?”

She snorted. “Mister Snow, I wasn't even there, and you know it. It’s a miracle your son turned out as well as he did. I’ll leave you to your work.”

She spun about and stalked off across the grounds.

* * *

The next day saw a light snow flurry, a mule cart of salvage goods from a neighboring town, and pair of cyclists hauling small trailers loaded with gleanings from a previously overrun community somewhere on the way to Colorado Springs. Another one-ton wagon loaded down with pine logs and pulled by a trike lumbered through the north gate off Hwy. 522.

Ellie shared a glance with Alan. He shifted an arm-load of produce, mostly various roots in a large paper grocery bag, and kissed Ellie on the top of her head.

Ellie heard rapid footsteps. Movement in her peripheral vision became Lex storming tearily out of their domicile. The girl stalked across the gravel and stopped at the edge of a snow berm. She squeezed her eyes shut and took several deep breaths through her mouth.

Alan took a step toward her. Ellie put a hand on his arm and shook her head. “You'd better go inside.”

His eyes widened. “Haakon...” he breathed.

“She would have called for help. This is something else.”

“How do you...?”

“A woman's intuition. Just go. I'll handle this.”

“But...”

“Alan, she's a sixteen-year-old girl with her first serious boyfriend. You've never been one of those.”

“I dated one.”

Ellie shook her head. “Not the same thing. Not remotely. You go have that man-to-man talk his father seems too...you know. If he's up yet. If he's not...start lunch, I guess. I've got this.”

Alan knelt down and put his face right up to Ellie's belly. “Don't you go all teenagerish on us, okay? You got that?”

Ellie laughed. “Nice try. Now, go.”

Alan looked at Ellie for a moment, then past her toward Lex before turning toward the building. Ellie let out a sigh and walked over to Lex. At first, she just stood there.

At length, Lex looked up, eyes brimming with tears still trying to fall in the freezing winter air. She blinked slowly. “Oh, Mom,” she croaked.

Ellie put her arms around Lex and just held her.

After a minute, Lex said, “What am I going to do?”

“Probably a few things I bet you don't want to do.”

Lex dragged in a breath. “He almost died. And now he won't be able to fight by my side, or dance with me, or play ball with his...our...” The tears spilled over.

“Are you...?” Ellie asked.

Lex nodded.

“Are you sure?”

Lex nodded again. “Yes. No. I don't know. I think.”

“If you want, I can probably find a test for you and...”

“No. I mean, thanks, but I kinda don't want it out yet. It’s not like we all won’t find out for sure one way or another. And stuff can happen this early, right?”

Ellie nodded. “Does he know?”

Lex shook her head. “Maybe. I'm scared,” she whispered.

Ellie held Lex out at arm's length and looked her in the eye. “You? Scared?”

Lex scowled. “How am I supposed to do, you know, knightly things in...in my condition?”

Ellie let out a barely-restrained snort of laughter.

“It's not funny.”

“No, of course it isn't. A knight is...what was it...trustworthy, loyal, helpful...”

“That's a Boy Scout,” Lex corrected. She stood up straight and took a deep breath. “A knight is sworn to valor. Her heart knows only virtue. Her blade defends the helpless. Her might upholds the weak. Her words speak only truth. Her wrath undoes the wicked. Her knowledge will defeat ignorance. Her skills will be taught to the willing. Her temper shall be held by patience. She will give aid to those who seek it. She will ask for aid when needed.”

“I don't see why you should stop doing any of that.”

Lex's eyes narrowed. “Seriously?”

“I don't plan on letting mine slow _me_ down any!”

Lex let out a short laugh. “That I believe.”

Ellie smiled. “And I don't expect you to let it slow you down, either. Besides, it just so happens that I'm on very good terms with a woman expecting by Christmas. I'm pretty sure I can talk her into sharing her notes with you. Trust me, you got this.”

Lex smiled. Ellie slid an arm around Lex's shoulder. “Do you need another minute out here?”

Lex took a deep breath. “There’s...something else.” Ellie waited. “He proposed.”

“He did? Honey, that’s wonderful!”

Lex looked at her.

“Oh, dear,” said Ellie.

“What, no 'you're too young, too naïve, and have no idea what you're getting into?'”

“You're the most mature young woman I've ever known.”

“I notice you didn't say, 'for a sixteen-year-old.'”

“Alexis, you're more mature than most college kids I've known. Believe me, there have been a great many. Besides, I distinctly recall the day you two met. He was standing there, with one hand on the snout of a full-grown, living, breathing Allosaurus, one that we've both seen bite plenty of other people in half, and he couldn't keep his eyes off of _you_. And from that moment, you two get along like a house afire. So, maybe you jumped the gun a little. But I think you were made for each other.”

Alexis exhaled heavily. “You think I should go back in there and apologize, don’t you?”

“I think there’s a young man in there who loves you very much and deserves an explanation.”

Lex wiped her eyes and took another deep breath. “Can I...have a minute out here? To clear my head.”

Ellie nodded. “Take as long as you need. Just not too long. You look cold.” She nodded at the young woman’s bare arms.

Minutes later, Ellie perched herself on a padded milking stool and peered at Haakon. He lay on a salvaged sofa, his back propped up with several pillows. His good right leg half-dangled off the edge. He fidgeted with his toes, a gesture made awkward by a thick woollen sock. His half-leg rested on a rolled up blanket.

He looked back at her with a bewildering mix of expressions she rarely saw on anyone, much less an eighteen-year-old boy. No, she corrected herself, man.

“Well, look who's up,” she said.

The first word out of his mouth was lost in a croak. He cleared his throat and tried again, with only marginally more success. Ellie handed him a green-glazed stoneware tumbler still half-full of now-cold herbal tea. He sipped it, coughed slightly, then took a strong draught.

“Thanks,” he half-whispered before handing back the tumbler. Ellie set it on a small coffee table a couple of feet from the couch. “Alexis told me I was out for four days.”

“It was touch and go there for a while. She hardly left your side the whole time.” She grinned. “I’m half surprised she didn’t punch your father.”

Haakon managed what seemed a genuine smile. “Dad can be...difficult.” He cleared his throat and continued, “if it's about me and Alexis...” He cut off at Ellie's raised eyebrow.

Haakon visibly collected himself and started over. “I know you're upset about it, and I get that.”

“Son,” said Alan from across the room where he stood struggling with a pot of chili, “you're doing penance.”

“Really, Doctor Grant? You already cut my leg off. Isn't that enough?”

Alan just chuckled, adding what Ellie thought was perhaps a bit too much edge.

Ellie turned aside to hide a smile that, despite her best effort, had already begun to creep onto her face. She could tell Alan was trying to make Haakon squirm and she was perfectly content to let that happen. Truth be told, she liked Haakon. So did Alan. For that matter, so did everyone else. He worked hard, learned fast, still followed as best he could the Scout Oath and Law, and he loved Lex with a fiery passion. For better or for worse, Haakon was just the sort of guy any parent would be pleased to have as a son-in-law. And she was quite sure Lex's biological parents would agree.

“I can explain,” he said.

Ellie collected herself and turned back to Haakon. “I don’t need an explanation. Your girlfriend, on the other hand...” She let the rest dangle.

Haakon nodded. “Look, what happened on the field...” He cleared his throat and left the rest unspoken.

Alan gave the stew another stir and turned around. “You should have consulted us first,” he said casually.

“Would you have said 'no'?” asked Haakon.

Ellie finally let out the laughter she'd been holding in for the last couple of minutes. “No, of course not!” She let a few moments of the laughter blow through before continuing. “We like you, Haakon. You're already practically family anyway. I think I can speak for my husband when I say that we'd both be pleased to have you as a son-in-law.”

Haakon smiled. “Thanks, Doctor Sattler. That means a lot.”

Ellie leaned forward. “You know, at some point, I wouldn't mind if you started calling me 'Mom.'” She planted a kiss on Haakon's forehead and stood up.

She met Lex in the dino garage on the way out. “I think your fiance is going to make it,” she said quietly.

Lex raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t exactly said ‘yes’ yet.”

Ellie shrugged. “I have a feeling that’s a detail at this point.”

“You’re really okay with all this?”

Ellie nodded. She gave Lex a firm hug. “We're happy for you.”

“You are? Because I thought you two might be a bit upset.”

Ellie pulled back. “Well, I think Alan’s been making him squirm some. And if you wind up beating the snot out of your future father-in-law, I won’t judge. Hell, I think Tim might sell tickets. But it is the way it is. Just remember what we discussed.”

Lex smiled. “That we'll both learn how to be moms together?”

Ellie nodded, and kissed Lex on the forehead. “Now, I'm sure my husband is grilling him a little, so rescue him, okay?”

Lex giggled briefly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Lex sings:  
https://miracleofsound.bandcamp.com/track/we-are-war-2


	8. The Adventure Continues

Ellie gazed down at a large, sturdy sign supported on three sides by rough-hewn eight-by-eight timbers. The words “WELCOME TO” had been fixed to the topmost timber. From that hung a sign of several layers of stainless and brushed steel plate. On it, “MOAB” blazed in large, dramatic letters over an artist's interpretation of the iconic Delicate Arch below which floated the much smaller, plainer, “GRAND COUNTY, UTAH.” Beneath that, a second part of the sign read, in even smaller letters, “The Adventure Begins.”

Red sandstone cliffs rose up not far to the southwest. A pile of lumpy, beige hills formed the northeastern edge of the valley a half-mile away. Between them stretched rust-orange dirt and sand peppered with small rocks and sagebrush punctuated by the occasional structure. Ahead, Hwy. 191 ran across more of the same red-orange sand and dust strewn with grasses, sagebrush, and sparse wildflowers they'd been traversing for weeks.

Lex and Tim took up their customary flanking positions, bows at the ready. Thanks to a good deal of upper-body training, Lex could pull a bit over three-quarters the eighty-pound draw weight of her horn-tipped recurve bow, a beautiful weapon she'd received as a wedding gift. She also maintained a betting pool on whether her brother was going to outgrow his secondhand fifty-pound compound bow before an irreplaceable component broke.

At length, what had once been Moab's promise began to march past them at the snail's pace usual for passing through towns, or anywhere else one might expect an ambush by the Dead or the living.

“Some of these places look pretty nice,” said Lex. She gestured toward a clump of houses set off the road as they plodded past. “It's been a while since we've slept in decent beds.”

“And we could use more food,” Tim said.

“So noted,” said Alan.

Lex was right, of course. No matter how many nights one spent sleeping on the ground, and how much it had become normal to most of them, Ellie still missed a good mattress.

Tim had an equally valid point. Rations had run a bit too low for everyone's liking. And in a town that had once had around five thousand people, according to a second, standard green sign, there was sure to be something left somewhere.

They passed the occasional abandoned vehicle, nosed into a ditch, or sitting where it had collided with something. Some bore scorch marks, charred down to bare metal and crumbling bone.

Swaths of charred earth marked where buildings had burned to the ground. An occasional cinder-block structure gazed out at them through empty windows framed by black scorch marks and sooty streaks reaching up like eyelashes.

A collection of rental homes near the Old Spanish Trail Arena might once have been promising if more of them still stood. Alan declared the nearby Moab KOA to be a security nightmare. Past an equipment rental outfit and a self-storage place, Alan brought the caravan to a halt.

On the left, the Spanish Trail RV Park occupied an expansive lot. Large shade trees, many of them dead or visibly stressed, punctuated the rows of RV spaces. At least a dozen RV's still sat there. On the right, separated by Spanish Trail Rd., sat a Shell gas station and Rosie's Branding Iron restaurant.

Off the verge, grass florets, sagebrush, yellow rabbitbrush, and purple salsify swayed in the afternoon breeze. The occasional puff of orange dust drifted across the asphalt. Nothing else moved.

Ellie exchanged glances with Alan, an unspoken, 'Here's good,' passing between them.

“Okay, boys and girls,” Ellie announced. “Let's park over there.” She gestured to the Shell station. “We'll spill over onto that gravel pad on the far side.”

“Right,” said Alan. “Perimeter teams, you know the drill. I want one team to clear the station. Another, that Rosie's Branding Iron place. Let's get two through that RV park. Go!”

People on dinos and equines scattered like water on a hot griddle.

Two teams thumped and clopped into the RV park, a pair of Bicentenaria at heel, their rufous fluff shimmering where it shifted across emerald under-fluff in a way that always reminded Ellie of hummingbirds. Six-foot-long hummingbirds with jaws full of sharp teeth, but fiercely loyal to their bonded humans.

The rest of the convoy pulled up in well-practiced rows on a wide crushed gravel area adjacent to the station's parking lot or beneath the canopy spanning the pumps. Children drew pails of water from one of two trike-drawn 2000-gallon water-buffalo wagons and set them and clumps of feed for the dinos, equines, camelids, and the assortment of miscellaneous unclassified animals resurrected by InGen.

A single vehicle, a dust-coated and sad-looking light blue Toyota Turcel wagon, sat beside a pump, its tires flat. None of the pumps showed any sign of life. The mini-mart looked even darker.

Ellie sidled Sally up into the shade beside a set of pumps and climbed down with a creak and clatter of leather and armor. She was once again glad she'd opted to carry little Alicia on her back in a baby pack they'd bartered some dinosaur cheese, protie eggs, and llama milk for at a second-hand store the first week after fleeing Questa. Trying to negotiate Sally with Alicia in a front sling had quickly become an exercize in frustration.

“It's locked!” James called from the station's door. “There's dried blood on the outside. Mostly smeared on the glass. There's some caked in the gaskets, too. Like the Dead were trying to get in. Looks pretty old.”

Beth peered into the intermittently sunlit interior. “I think there's still food in there,” she said.

“Well, let's go get it.”

“Can't,” said Beth.

“Aw, come on.”

“James, you know our laws.”

“Screw that!”

“James,” said Alan, “do we have to discuss this again?”

“But...”

Alan pointed away. “Road's that way. And you know damned well what's out there, what goes chomp in the night.”

James grumbled under his breath.

Beth's Bicentenaria Josie growled. Beth stroked the animal's olive-tinged rufous fluff. “What is it, girl?” she asked.

The plate-glass door shuddered. Beth spun around, took several steps back, missed the curb, and fell on her back-side. “Ow!” she yelped. Josie stood over Beth and snarled at the station door.

“You okay?” Tim asked.

Beth nodded. A Dead man in shorts and a T-shirt thumped against the glass, moaning, staring out with milky eyes.

“I think,” said Beth, “we just found out why they locked it.”

Ellie pointed. “See that wound on his arm? I think he was bitten, locked himself in away from the Dead outside, then died and reanimated.” She pointed at a trail of faint, rusty stains barely visible on the asphalt. “And his attackers shambled away. I guess it counts as abandoned.”

“Which makes it legal salvage now!” James said triumphantly.

Ellie heard Sally snort.

“Ellie,” said Alan, “don't let her...”

“On it!” Ellie took several long strides to Sally, gently took the dinosaur's head in both hands, and began stroking her snout and making shushing sounds.

Behind her came the _TUNG_ of a crossbow, shattering glass, and a thud. The moaning stopped. Sally calmed and Josie's snarls subsided to the occasional gruff snort.

“Right,” said Alan. “Get to it. Standard procedure.”

Ellie released Sally while glass crunched behind her. She checked her weaponry and shot Alan a glance from behind her sunglasses. They'd long before agreed to disagree about the baby.

Odd, how Alan's opinion about babies had changed. She vividly recalled a certain discussion they'd had on the subject shortly before their ill-fated trip to Nublar. He'd insisted that babies smelled and she'd just as strenuously objected. They'd both been right, and wrong, of course. But the day Alicia had been born, some switch inside Alan's mind had flipped and he'd become, in Ellie's view, a bit over-protective. But Ellie had resolutely refused to let motherhood slow her down.

Weapons at the ready, her team trotted across Spanish Trail Rd. and the restaurant's parking lot in the early afternoon warmth. A cute, farmhouse-style building with a red tile roof, unfinished wooden siding, and stout rough-hewn exterior beams, it sat back on the other side of a split-rail fence and what Ellie guessed to have once been a nicely-kept lawn.

Now, what looked like at least three years' worth of debris from a large tree in front coated part of the roof and the walkway. A mostly-dead branch from an even larger tree on the street side rested on the roof amid a depression and dozens of damaged terra-cotta tiles, its butt end still attached to the trunk.

A blue early-model Ford Mustang with Utah plates and flat tires sat in a parking space, its driver nowhere to be found. Three spaces over sat a late-model Dodge Ram in similar condition. On the lot's far side sat a burned-out sedan, probably a Honda Civic, a human skull visible through a shattered window. Beside the front door stood the requisite chainsaw-carved bear sculpture.

They paused to listen for the proscribed full minute. Carol's Bicentenaria Brookie, a beautiful male with sapphire, mustard, and brick-red spots on mottled olive fluff that transitioned to rufous and buff on his belly, snorted a couple of times and grunted. Ellie nodded to Frank. He pulled the front door open, standing clear as he did, to reveal semi-darkness within.

Carol flicked on a high-powered tactical flashlight and shone it through the door. Only a small atrium with a red entry rug and a small rack filled with colorful fliers advertising a variety of activities to be pursued in and around Moab occupied the space. Frank propped the door open with a nearby rock and repeated the procedure with the interior door.

A stale odor of dust, mold, and rodent droppings wafted from within.

Jake rushed outside and retched over the shaggy grass.

“Are you going to keep it down this time?” Carol asked.

Jake took a few deep breaths and nodded. “That was close,” he said.

“You need a Tums or five?” Frank asked.

“Nah, I'm good.” Jake held up a half-used roll of antacids and popped one into his mouth.

“It isn't even that bad,” said Carol.

“Something I ate,” he called.

“It usually is, with you.”

“Okay,” said Ellie, “Jake, take rear watch. The rest of you are with me.”

Brookie snorted. “You said it, boy,” said Carol.

Two more flashlights joined Carol's. Everyone pulled up their bandannas and crept inside, listening for moaning or foot-falls. Ellie flipped the door's prop lever down with her toe and panned her own light around inside.

Frank tried a light switch. “I wonder how long the power's been out.”

“Hard to say,” said Ellie. “Offhand, I'd say it failed within a couple of months.”

Windows spilled daylight into the main dining area. On a polished, darkly-stained hardwood floor, a collection of rectangular tables with red-and-white checkered tablecloths and chairs stood about the room. Wood paneling and barn-red paint with a couple of mounted bovine skulls and wagon wheels completed the country décor.

On four of the tables sat dirty plates crusted with what had once been unfinished food. Ellie suspected that some of it had been eaten by rats and mice not long after the patrons had fled. Several disheveled chairs sat at odd angles to their adjacent tables, and two lay on the floor along with a couple of now-off-white napkins and a few pieces of stainless steel flatware.

Strings of Christmas lights hung from the windows and along part of one wall. A decorated tree, a few brown needles still clinging to a score of curled-up twigs, stood in a corner.

Carol sighed heavily. “It hit at Christmas,” she said. “That's so sad!”

“I know, right?” said Frank.

“Well,” said Ellie, “let's look in the back.”

They crept past a wooden bar and into the kitchen. Stainless steel gleamed in the flashlight beams.

“Someone had enough presence of mind to turn off the stove,” said Carol, pointing at a collection of pots and pans sitting on a counter near the stove, all crusted with unidentifiable contents. “Hey, spices!”

Carol picked up a plastic container and shook it, then popped the lid and sniffed. She grinned. “Cinnamon! Haakon's going to be happy.” She put it back on the shelf with the others. “Oh, and it looks like we have some sealed containers. Baking soda. Soy flour. Whole wheat flour. Brown rice. Score!”

“I wonder why no one salvaged any of this stuff,” said Frank.

Brookie growled at the walk-in freezer. Something inside bumped against the door, something that made a muffled moan. A paper taped to the door read, “Dead inside! Do NOT open!”

Carol pointed at it. “Who wants to brave the walk-in?”

After a moment of near-silence, Carol said, “Wimps.” She grabbed the handle on the large steel door and paused while Ellie and Frank took up positions with raised weapons. Brookie continued growling. Carol pulled the latch and pulled the door open a couple of inches.

Something pushed on the door from the inside and moaned. Brookie bellowed, the coarse lion-esque noise reverberating in the confined space.

Ellie nodded at Carol. She heaved the door open and a woman tottered out, heading straight for Frank. Ellie squeezed her trigger. At close range, the _TUNG_ of her crossbow and the _CRACK-SMACK_ of her bolt hitting home were almost simultaneous. Frank's own bolt joined hers at about the same time. Both came out the other side of the woman's skull and lodged in the walk-in door. The woman collapsed. Behind her, Alicia let out a howl in the wake of Brookie's snarl.

Ellie winced.

Frank shone his light on the body. She'd probably been in her late twenties when she'd died, her black hair twisted into a double-ponytail, a dirty apron over a calico-print dress with ruffled sleeves, and black leather sneakers on her feet.

“Suzie?” he asked.

Carol nodded. “She probably thought she had the flu.”

“Why,” said Frank, “do people always come to work anyway?”

“Work ethic?”

“Or,” said Ellie, “she was the proprietor and half her employees called in dying.”

Carol cringed. “Well, it's probably why the dry goods are still here.”

“Grab them,” said Ellie. “Pretty sure the walk-in's a loss.”

Minutes later, the trio emerged from the building. “There was one,” said Frank.

Carol held up two bulging plastic bags. “But we scored on seasonings!” she gushed. “And there are a few sealed bins of flour, baking soda, pancake mix, rice, pasta, and whatnot.”

“Well, I'm not going in there,” said Jake. “I'm a bit unsettled just thinking about it.”

Ellie could relate. Her own morning sickness had been like that from time to time. Certain smells had set her off. Poor Lex had been worse. She'd been ill just thinking about certain smells. Fortunately, she'd passed her first trimester just before leaving Questa.

She looked across the highway in the general direction of the RV park. “Let's take a short breather, people. I want the baby to calm down and my ear to stop ringing before we move on to the next place. Carol, if you want to retrieve those dry goods, go for it.”

Carol sniffed. “I think Alicia needs changing, too.”

“Hell,” said Frank, “so do I.”

“Very funny,” said Carol.

Ellie spotted movement among the dozen or so RV's over at the park. A shout floated across the space, then silence.

“Same Bat-time,” said Carol.

“Different Bat-channel,” Frank finished.

Ellie shook her head. How long until such pop culture references faded into obscurity?

Half an hour later, everyone had returned. In addition to the dry goods, Carol had retrieved several number-ten cans of things like tomato sauce, pork-and-beans, and pears from Suzie's kitchen.

Three of the RV's had burned some time ago. The others had yielded several kinds of vitamins and nutritional supplements, medications, granola in both bagged and bar form, some hard and BabyBell cheeses still in wax, a variety of canned goods, miscellaneous ramen and mac-&-cheese, an assortment of mostly herbal teas, boxed cereal, a bottle of champagne, and miscellaneous health items like toothpaste and dental floss.

The convenience store had yielded nearly a full ton of all the usual snack foods. The dairy case had been a total loss, of course, except for some cheddar and Swiss cheeses. Over half of the juices had also gone off, their containers bulging. Most of the soda pop and some of the beer cans had ruptured. Bottled water of course, was still good. Anything under heat lamps had long ago turned into barely-identifiable desiccated bricks.

“Well,” said Ellie, looking at the pile of boxed food sitting under the shade by the pumps, “I'm getting indigestion just looking at half of this. But at least it has calories.”

“Maybe we can use the Twinkies and beer as trade goods,” said Alan.

“Aw, man,” said Tim.

“Or cooking fuel,” said Haakon.

“Haakon!” Tim scolded.

“What? Twinkies aren't food!” he insisted. “I'm not letting those things into my kitchen. And as for the beer, I wouldn't put any of that into my chili.”

Ellie looked at Tim and shook her head.

“Can't we at least keep the good stuff?” Tim asked.

“Tim,” said Beth, “this is a convenience store. They don't have the good stuff here.”

“Even if they did,” said Alan, “you're not twenty-one.”

Tim shot Alan a look, but said nothing.

“And you, young lady,” said Ellie to Lex.

“I know, I know,” said Lex. She patted her abdomen and left it at that.

Haakon stood with a crutch under one arm, clipboard in-hand, jotting down boxes and their contents prior to loading into wagons and saddlebags. Knowing him, he'd already made a few mental notes for the constantly-changing menu he'd been developing since he'd inherited the kitchen from Brad right around Christmastime.

“You know,” he said, “we could really use some more fresh veggies.”

Ellie nodded. “Dan,” she called, “will you keep your eyes peeled for a neglected veggie garden?”

“Okay,” Dan replied, “but I'm telling you, I can count on one hand the number of things that'll grow by themselves around here without irrigation. And one of 'em's prickly pear. Although I could stand to be surprised by some carrots or beets. And before you say it, dandelions don't count.”

“But they're nutritious!” Haakon protested.

“Well, sure, and they're why we don't have scurvy and whatnot. But they're not exactly tasty.”

“Ya-sure, I'll give ya that.”

The team had also salvaged a variety of dry goods. Motor oil, first-aid supplies, toilet paper, charcoal briquettes, matches, and so on. Outside the building, five newspaper dispensers were still half full of what functioned as compost for the veggie wagon, and campfire tinder. A few bundles of firewood still sat in a long box between the newspaper and the ice machine, its contents long ago melted, and mostly evaporated.

Near the gas pumps, Joel and Anna filled propane canisters from the pump they'd powered up with a generator. Every couple of minutes, they switched canisters and someone carried it back to a trailer. Nearby, Greg pulled the electrical access to the gas pumps and dove in with a screwdriver and lineman pliers while a dozen other people emptied jug after jug of drinking water into the water-buffalo trailer on the gravel lot. Ten minutes later, Pump 2 gushed regular unleaded into the first of two dozen cans that held fuel for the generator, several white-gas cooking stoves, and two small shower-water heaters.

* * *

Hwy. 191 gradually curved west of north. Along the way, they passed a growing number of buildings, including the headquarters for Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, but little of immediate interest. Lex shot a Dead deer, Tim an otherwise pretty Dead blonde in a cheerleader uniform. Five others shambled across vacant lots far out of range.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” said Ellie.

“Me, too,” said Alan.

“Doctor Grant,” said, Beth, “what's Shopko?” She pointed at a large building.

“It's kind of a higher-end Target,” said Anna.

“Frank, Beth,” said Alan, “check it out.”

An hour later, Frank, Beth, and several volunteers emerged with new cutlery and kitchen tools, new shoes for everyone, fresh toothbrushes, washcloths, socks, underwear, better sleeping bags and new tents and Thermarest pads, water-treatment pills and filters, sunscreen and sunglasses, diapers, baby food and wipes, children's toys, books, shampoo, soap, headlamps and a cartload of spare batteries, and various miscellany to replace what had irreparably worn out, or they hadn't managed to salvage elsewhere. They even carted out an assortment of Christmas goods.

No sooner had they loaded the recent acquisitions and set off again, when Dan pointed. “Quality Inn. What does everyone think?”

“Well,” said Alan, “I don't know...”

“I could do with a soft bed,” said Lex. “And so could Haakon,” she added.

“And it's getting late,” Beth added, gesturing at the western sky where the sun hung six diameters above the hills.

“I don't disagree,” said Alan, “but look at that place. What's the first thing you notice?”

“The windows don't open?” said Tim.

“Right.”

“So,” said Lex, “no ventilation.”

“Yah,” said Haakon pensively, “Hard to secure, too. I think we should pass on it. Some of you might not recall that one place in...”

A chorus of objections silenced him.

“Guys,” said Carol, “I think there's a field on the other side of that Maverick over there. Looks like real grass, too, not that half-weeds-and-thistles stuff. And a motel or three with, uh, openable windows?”

“It's worth a look,” said Alan pensively, “I think we can handle another couple hundred yards. Let's go.”

A few minutes later, the caravan stopped in the highway's center turn lane. To the right, a broad field, overgrown with shaggy grass yellowing in early summer and liberally strewn with flowering weeds sloped gently toward a seasonal creek. To the left stood a feed store and the Silver Sage Inn. Beyond that sat the charred remains of what had probably been a fast-food restaurant. Ellie also spotted a Chevron, and a pair of recently-built chain motels.

She watched the perimeter team thump out of sight behind the Silver Sage. She passively listened to the usual suspects complain about the stubborn insistence on following thoroughly-obsolete traffic laws, Alan’s lecture about the mantle of civilization, and a few of the children whining about whether or not they were “there yet.” A short time later, the perimeter rider re-appeared around the other end of the single-story building and pull up at the edge of its parking lot.

“It's clear,” said Tim. “Not so much as a broken window.”

“A few tracks,” said Lex. “Deer, sheep, rabbit. Some ruminant dragging a damaged hind leg. No other drag marks.”

Ellie nodded. “Looks promising to me.”

“Okay,” said Alan, “clearance team, let's go.”

The inn consisted of a long building spanning the back of the property, and a much smaller one set at a right angle to it and a couple dozen yards off the highway. At the center of the main structure, a ramp led to a single dark brown door set with a large window and flanked by stone facade within the shelter of a small portico. White siding covered the rest of the building, punctuated with screened windows above air-conditioning units. A few skylight domes stood out along the roof-line.

Between the smaller building, the road, and the inn's sign spread a sizable patch of what had probably been turf, now waist-high and mixed with desert wildflowers. At one end of the building, a small recessed porch shaded a table, a small propane barbecue, and an ice machine. Another small portico sheltered a brown door set with a window flanked by a pair of lights enclosed in translucent globes, and four plate glass windows inside of which hung open Venetian blinds. A small sign identified it as the Office. To one side of a ramp stood a bicycle rack, and on the other a sign read “CHECK-IN PARKING ONLY.” A red Toyota Rav-4, coated in dust, sat on flat tires near the main building.

Ellie reined Sally in front of the inn's smaller building and dismounted. She pounded on the door and waited the proscribed sixty seconds before trying the knob. It turned easily. “Cover,” she said. A moment later, she eased it open, Frank and Beth right behind her.

The interior was not quite as dark as the restaurant. Light spilled through the windows. Ellie raised one set of blinds after another until waning daylight flooded the space. As at the restaurant, a collection of tables and chairs stood askew where they'd been shoved by quickly-departing patrons, the remains of their continental breakfasts forgotten and left to dessicate in paper and styrofoam containers. Ellie didn't have to guess at what had become of items behind the door of a small refrigerator. Apples and oranges left in baskets on the counter had long dried out, bagels and bread gone stale. Four cereal bins still stood at least half full. Coffee in air-pots had no doubt gone cold and horribly stale. The equally stale air carried with it no hint of life or death.

“What do you think,” said Frank, “can Haakon do anything with that fruit and bread?”

“Are you kidding?” said Beth. “That guy works culinary wonders!”

“That's only because you were raised on SPAM and Wonder bread.”

“I was not,” she protested. “Dad happened to have been an Iron Chef.”

“Cast Iron Chef, maybe.”

Beth only hrmphed.

An open door behind the reception desk hung with artificial garland gave no hint of anything either living or dead. A dozen gift-wrapped boxes sat beneath a dead Christmas tree in one corner. Several maps of both the local area and the state of Utah hung on the walls.

“Frank, Beth, check the office,” Ellie said.

Ellie knocked on an unmarked door near the reception counter, answered only by silence. She turned the knob and nudged the door open with the business end of her crossbow.

It opened onto a small apartment, probably the residence of the inn's owners. Its air was just as stale as the lobby's. An unblinded window spilled setting sunlight into the space.

A dusty blue sofa faced a large console TV. On the walls hung framed family photographs, a pastel drawing of Delicate Arch, and a wood-fired stoneware platter. A dried-out Christmas tree decorated with a mish-mash of mostly hand-made ornaments stood in a corner. An overturned chair lay beside a small coffee table strewn with papers and an upset stoneware coffee mug featuring Delicate Arch.

A single human leg lay draped over the chair, the bone showing through a rent in what remained of tissue-thin skin. The rest of its owner lay on the floor, a pink floral nightgown draped over her frame. A small hole was visible in her skull, put there probably by the revolver still in her hand. A crescent of dark, long-dried blood the size of a set of human teeth stood out against her forearm skin.

Ellie walked past a kitchen table, still set for four, a long-forgotten inedible pizza and two-liter bottle of flat root beer in the center. She flicked on her Mag-light and pushed open a door to a small bathroom. A figure in long pants lay sprawled in the tub. Probably the woman's husband.

She nudged the bedroom door open. A queen-sized bed was still neatly made from that day. A bedspread patterned in brick, blue-green, and buff conjured the American Southwest. Two decorative pillows in Christmas themes sat near the headboard. Ellie sighed heavily, and returned to the lobby.

“I found the proprietors,” she said.

“The usual?” Beth asked.

“The usual. They were expecting company, but no sign of them.”

“Nothing here,” said Frank. “Not even stale cookies for Odin.”

Beth gave Frank the raspberry. “Several of the room keys are missing,” she said.

“Is there a master key?” Ellie asked.

Beth held up a key and grinned.

Ellie nodded. “Good work. Let's go.”

She led the way out the door. Most of the smaller herbivores had been set to grazing on the grass between the inn and the road. The larger animals still waited on the highway.

“So far, so good,” Ellie called. “We'll keep you posted!”

Alan waved in reply.

“Mom,” said Tim, “you're double-parked.” He gestured to where Sally reposed, half in a handicap space, and half in the space beside it, tail thumping the asphalt a full car-length back.

“Very funny, junior,” she said. “Why don't you and your sister maintain the perimeter while we clear the other building?”

She walked up the ramp to the main building. Carol waited there with Brookie. “So far so good,” said Carol. “Door's unlocked and Brookie hasn't protested yet.”

Ellie nodded. “We'll still do this by the book. If there's anyone home, you know what to do. I'll cover you.” She shouldered her crossbow and nodded.

Carol twisted the knob and pushed. The door swung easily inward, dragging only on the bottom weather-stripping. The expected waft of stale air puffed out.

A small entry provided space for guests to wrangle luggage, presumably, a small rack with fliers like they'd seen at the restaurant earlier, and a silent soda-pop machine. Ahead, a skylight illuminated the dim hallway.

Frank and Beth slipped in past Ellie, clicked on their headlamps, and went to work. A quick trio of raps on a door, a ten-second wait, then move on to the next.

Carol followed Brookie and Ellie propped the door open. A double row of pale wooden doors marched in each direction, three skylight domes and a door at each end spilled light onto a mottled grey-green carpet.

Brookie growled at a room halfway down one hall, answered immediately by a half-muffled moan. Frank and Carol took position on either side. Beth unlocked the door as room's occupant tried to get out. She twisted the knob, shoved with a foot, and ducked.

The door swung inward, quickly bounced off of something, and slammed back into place. Beth reached up and shoved it again. Mag-lights illuminated a half-dessicated person struggling to climb up off the floor. Brookie bellowed. Frank and Carol fired together and the person went limp.

“Too bad,” said Frank. “She was pretty before she died.” Then he added to Beth, “Not as pretty as you, of course.”

“Nice save, Ace,” she said.

Ellie nudged Frank. “You should have waited for me to say it, junior,” she teased.

He cringed. “Sorry,” he said.

“You're not wrong, though.” Ellie gestured at the Dead girl laying on her back inside the room, matted blonde hair spread in a tarnished halo about her head. As always, the pale, shriveled skin of the Dead looked like a Thanksgiving turkey gone bad. But the mental translation needed to return the Dead's humanity closely paralleled that needed to imagine the elderly as they'd been in their twenties.

“This girl was a cheerleader type. Her clothes are only marginally too big, about size six I'd say. Size seven heels. She had good taste.”

“Um, Ellie,” said Beth, “no offense, but you wouldn't know good taste if it shambled up and bit you on the arm.”

“Ha, ha,” said Ellie. “I'll have you know, I can spiff up as well as the next girl. Just ask Alan. He'll tell you all about those annoying social functions we had to attend for fundraising.”

“I'm just having trouble visualizing you in an evening gown, heels, and makeup.”

“I'm not,” said Frank.

Ellie raised an eyebrow.

“Well...I mean...um...”

Ellie shrugged. “Just don't tell Alan you said that. Besides, every woman has hidden depths. Okay, people, let's finish clearing this place, and then get some air freshener in here.”

Several minutes later, Ellie walked up to Alan. “One room had someone home. Otherwise, the place is reasonably clean. No foul smells, except from the one room. And even that isn't too bad. A little Febreeze, maybe some incense or scented candles, and we'll be good to go. A few other rooms had some possessions left behind. Whole suitcases, toiletries, the works. Looks like people fled in a hurry.”

“Or were out and about and didn't return,” said Frank.

“Or both,” Beth added.

Alan nodded. He wheeled Asfaloth about. “Okay, people, let's do it!”

An hour later, Ellie leaned against the rock wall surrounding the inn's sturdy steel sign post, and surveyed the work of her people. Behind her, the smaller animals grazed on the grass or lounged in the long shade of a tree.

The heavier wagons sat angled in parking spaces beside the inn's grass. A dozen two-gallon buckets for toilet-flushing sat beside the 200-gallon grey-water-buffalo. Medium and lighter wagons, mostly bearing personal baggage and the day's salvage, sat tail-in along the main building. The mobile garden trailer sat a little behind the “grey-ffalo,” tended by Dan and Melissa.

Most of the larger animals grazed or reposed in the field across the road, guarded by the first watch. A long row of tack, everything from cart harness to saddlery to saddlebags and blankets sat along a low concrete wall at the eastern edge of the parking lot.

The main chuck wagon sat nearest the office building. Haakon and a pair of helpers prepped dinner from a spread covering the sheltered table while the little BBQ heated.

Every door and window in the inn stood open for ventilation, except for the Dead room, which remained tightly closed on its contents and into which an entire can of Lysol and another whole can of Febreeze had been emptied and in which several incense sticks smoldered.

A trio of field-stone berms covered the bodies of Larry and Ann Williams and the unnamed girl just outside their erstwhile apartment. Every twenty minutes, someone patrolling the perimeter dispatched a Dead person and dragged the body into the verge. A few babies fussed intermittently counterpoint to their elder siblings' plaintive inquiries.

“We do good work, don't we,” Ellie said to Alan.

He sidled up to her and slid an arm around her waist. “Yeah, we do.”

“We should take a few zeros here,” she said. “It'll do wonders for the morale. There's a tire place across the street, a market that might still have something grocery-ish, the Chile Pepper Bike Shop...”

“Because we still have duct tape and bailing wire holding some things together.”

“Exactly. And Moab Brewery...just don't let Tim get too excited. We all need some rest, especially the animals. Besides, I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to a nice, soft bed tonight.”

Alan turned around and gazed into her eyes. “So am I,” he said, bumping his eyebrows.

Ellie felt her heart race a little. “Why, Mister Grant! I do declare, you are being _far_ too forward!” she teased.

“Is that so, Missuz Grant?”

“Yes. It is.”

He kissed her. “I'll just have to remember that after the meeting.”

She kissed him back. “I'll do that.”

A set of clicking footsteps caught her attention.

“Well, Mom,” said Lex, “what do you think?”

Ellie looked up and felt her jaw drop. The young woman Ellie barely recognized had found and apparently appropriated someone's discarded black leather pants, two-inch black heels, and a black leather sleeveless top, and had wound her hair up atop her head beneath a black leather ball cap. She watched Lex strut across the parking lot, wobbling a little with every third step. The clothing looked at least a size too big, but Lex pulled off the look flawlessly.

“W...wow,” said Ellie, once she'd found her voice.

“Young lady,” said Alan, “you are not going out like...”

“Alan,” Ellie interrupted, “it's fine. More than fine.”

“But she...”

Ellie put a finger to his lips. “She's a grown woman and she can wear what she wants.”

“Thanks, Mom,” said Lex.

“Unless ,” Ellie continued, “we're in combat mode, in which case I expect her to be in full gear. But at the moment, we're not, so if she wants to make all the men in camp trip over themselves, I intend to laugh my butt off watching. Besides, what's the worst that can happen?”

Alan visibly squirmed, but said nothing.

She turned to Lex. “Not bad for your first time in heels, by the way.”

Lex grinned and cocked her hips. “Thanks!” she gushed. “Oh, and there's an A-line leather skirt, too.” She paused. “Whoever she was, she sure had a thing for leather.”

Ellie made a shooing motion. “Let's talk fashion later, okay? Now, go over to that husband of yours, and see if you can break his brain.”

Lex spun about on the ball of a foot and walked away.

“Come on girl,” said Ellie, “work it, work it, shake what your mama gave ya!” Lex began to strut. “That's better, you go girl!”

“Oh, Haa-kon!” Lex cooed.

Even from halfway across the parking lot, Ellie could see Haakon’s brain grind to a screeching halt. The jar of dill pickles in his hand slipped, sloshing juice into a serving bowl mostly full of potato salad. He might have fallen over if he hadn't already been propped against the table.

Ellie giggled.

“I don't think you should encourage her,” said Alan.

Ellie chuckled. “What? It's not like she's going to get pregnant. Oh, wait.”

Alan hrmphed. “She's too young for...that,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward Lex.

“Bull. She just got her ears pierced over winter. Don't tell me you didn't know the rest of it was coming. Anyway, I'm not sure what her birth parents would think, but...” She left off with a shrug and a smile.

Alan frowned. “She's not going to be able to fit into that for much longer.”

“Maybe after she has her baby. For now, just let her have some fun.”

Alan cocked an eyebrow. “That's in addition to that Knights of Thunder game they've been playing?”

Both of Ellie's eyebrows rose. “A game? Is that what you think?”

“Isn't it?”

She chuckled ruefully. “Alan, you really should pay more attention. Sure, I guess it started out that way. A bit of sibling rivalry meshed with a coping mechanism and a way to honor their grandfather’s memory. But somewhere along the road, it turned deadly serious, and probably pretty early on. But we were too busy surviving to notice. All the archery practice, bladesmanship, axe-throwing, spear-chucking, tests of skill, feats of strength, and all the...”

“King Arthur and Conan the barbarian?” Alan interjected.

“That's one way to put it. Alan, those two kids turned into warriors when we weren't looking. And their friends followed right along.”

Alan shook his head slowly in that way he did when he knew she was right about something he strongly wanted not to be. “And what are they going to do with themselves when things go back to normal? How are those skills going to help them once civilization gets back on its feet?”

Ellie sighed. “Back to normal? Alan, things are never going back to normal! We all knew that the moment Ian reanimated. Look around. _This_ is the new normal. Half the people we've met are going to think of the old world as just a bad dream. This one right here...” She stroked Alicia's pale downy hair. “...and the one Alexis is carrying, they're born into the Thanatocene. They'll never know anything other than this. I'll be astonished if whatever rises from the ashes has any resemblance to the civilization that's been burning down around our ears for the last four years.

“These kids, _our_ kids, they're the future. Not just in the way we used to mean it, not 'pull over Mom and Dad it's our turn to drive.' They're making that future right before our eyes and the new world will be whatever they make of it.

“So let them have their Knights of Thunder. It gives them a purpose, helps them focus. And if Haakon had died, I can guarantee you, Alexis would have gone full Valkyrie on our butts. We're building something, Alan. And if I'm wrong, then by the gods, we'll have a kick-ass story to tell the kids.”

Alan laughed.

A couple of hours later, Ellie and Alan slid their room window shut and drew the curtains against the chilly night air. A vanilla-scented pillar candle burned atop the TV cabinet, casting a soft light about the room. Little Alicia dozed in a doggy bed on a round table.

Delighted squeals penetrated the wall from the room next door.

“Well,” said Alan, “they sound happy.” He stepped up behind Ellie and wrapped his arms around her.

She leaned back against him. “That they do. I'm happy, too, you know.”

“Mmm? Hard to tell sometimes.”

Ellie turned around and looked into Alan's eyes. “We're alive and reasonably healthy. Our stepchildren are growing up to be strong and intelligent. We have a beautiful little girl who, incidentally, is sound asleep.” She tipped her head up and kissed her husband. “And I can't say for how much longer,” she added, pulling back the bed-clothes.

Some time later, Ellie looked down at Alan, panting heavily, gazing into his eyes in the candlelight.

“I've missed that,” he breathed.

“So have I.” She stayed where she was for several moments more, just savoring the feel of him inside her. Oh, she could get used to that. A soft bed, her man inside of her.

The sounds from the other room resumed.

“Yes, yes, _yes_, shoot yourself into me, Haakon!” Lex squealed through the wall.

Alan looked in that direction and started to open his mouth.

Ellie put a finger on his lips. “Not a word,” she said softly.

Alicia chose that moment to awaken. Ellie groaned and rolled off of Alan, flopping onto her back. “Your turn,” she said.

Alan groaned and climbed out of bed. “How people manage to have more than one baby...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the businesses mentioned in this chapter might not have existed in the '90's. My research on that aspect of the story is entirely from my own memory and from peering at GoogleMaps.


	9. When Ya Gotta Go, Ya Gotta Go

Ellie looked at the bridge spanning the mighty Colorado River. Her gaze drifted from that to the muddy water rushing beneath it, turgid from the spring runoff. Every few minutes, a piece of flotsam bobbed past. A log, a scrap of garbage, a bloated body.

“I'm not drinking out of that,” Lex declared.

“I don't think the animals will drink out of it either,” said Ellie.

“Good thing we loaded up on all that bottled water, then,” said Alan.

“I hope that faucet’s still running at Arches,” said Ellie.

“First things first.” Alan nodded toward the bridge.

At its far end, someone had thrown up a barricade. Little more than a heap of miscellaneous objects piled waist-high, it didn’t look solid enough to stop a speeding semi-truck.

“That wasn’t built to stop vehicles,” said Ellie.

“And where are those guys, anyway?” Lex asked.

Alan toggled a walkie-talkie. “Arglwydd to Syr-dai, come in.” Nothing. He repeated it twice.

Ellie looked back toward town. “I have a bad feeling about this,” she said.

“Karl!” Alan yelled. “Get Abrams up here and clear that barrier, will you?”

Karl let out a series of whistles. Abrams thumped past, the ankylosaur’s lateral spikes attributable to Wu’s imagination. Minutes later, another series of whistles and crashes rolled back along the asphalt. Objects—mostly pieces of furniture and scrap hauled up from someone's yard—cartwheeled through the air to land on the roadbed or the river. Karl waved.

“Let’s go!” said Alan.

Several of the lighter beasts went first—equines, the Protoceratops herd, Asfaloth and Sundancer. Then cyclists and mule-drawn carts and wagons, progressing up through the heavier dinos that weighed several tons each. The bridge had been built to handle multi-ton loads like semi-trucks hauling cargoes of steel and rock. But there was a big difference between that weight rolling across a span on wheels and that same weight thumping across it borne on four legs.

Ellie brought up the rear, Sally's bevy of juveniles chirping and chattering as usual. The river shushed past the concrete pilings supporting the bridge and the whole thing vibrated subtly with Sally's every step. Ellie breathed a sigh of relief as Sally stepped off the far side and back onto asphalt paving.

A boom sounded to the south. Ellie twisted her head in that direction. A minute later, Alan reined in beside her and exchanged a worried glance through their sunglasses. Ellie pulled her binoculars from their place and examined the way south. Several figures emerged from N 500 W, moving quickly.

At a mile out, Ellie could make out a riderless Skywalker thumping along beside all four cyclists laboring at their pedals.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I think we’re going to need some cover.”

“Be right back,” said Alan mid-wheel. A minute later, he returned with Lex and Karl in tow.

Ellie watched the medical salvage team approach, an ever-growing swarm of the Dead in pursuit. Every few moments, someone paused to loose an arrow. Now and then, something exploded amid the Dead, carving out a temporary gap.

Ellie adjusted Sally’s position and exchanged binoculars for her crossbow. “Prepare to repel the Dead!”

“How many?” Alan asked.

“I estimate several dozen. The usual mix.”

“Well,” said Karl, “that’s what hard-and-fast gets us, right?”

“It’s also what hospitals get us,” said Alan.

“Good,” said Lex, “I hate being bored.”

“Be careful what you ask for, Lady Knight,” said Ellie, and added, “Skywalker’s riderless.” That brought a ragged gasp from Lex.

Karl unlimbered the compact ballista weapon mounted to Abrams' armored back. He worked the cocking mechanism and slid an explosive charge—basically a large arrow with three sticks of dynamite duct-taped just behind the head—into the track. “Lock and load!” he said.

Behind the salvage team, a fire blossomed from the road. A moment later, a fireball erupted amid the flames. Ah, that would be a gasoline Molotov, Ellie thought. She wouldn’t trust old gas in a combustion engine, but it still exploded. Not enough to stop the Dead, of course, though one could usually count on a few boiled brains and dismembered bodies. But it would slow a fair number of them down.

As the team approached, details popped out that hadn’t been apparent through the binoculars. At length, they pulled up, all breathing hard, bike trailers overflowing and saddle-bags bulging with salvaged supplies. Skywalker fidgeted irritably, shifting from foot to food and growling.

Tim held his spear across a bike’s handlebars, a nasty vertical gash running from his forehead, past his right eye, to his jaw.

“Bow broke,” he said.

“Where's your walkie?” Alan asked.

“Phil had it,” said Kim.

Alan sighed through his nose.

Ellie took in the riders. Kim looked fine. Blood oozed down James' right leg from a wet area near his hip. Exposed bone showed on Frank's left shoulder. Jenny was missing an ear. And Phil, whose bike Tim rode—Ellie didn’t have to ask.

All she could do was set her jaw and nod. Alan waved them across the bridge. “Pull into Arches,” he said. “We'll debrief later.”

All four and an irritable Skywalker returned to motion, riders and their machines straining under their loads.

Ellie exchanged a glance with Alan, an unspoken, “I hope that was worth it,” passing between them.

Minutes later, the first of the Dead closed to within a hundred meters.

“Karl, at your leisure,” said Alan.

“Fire in the hole!” Karl called.

Ellie heard a clink-chunk-thunk-whoosh. The projectile shot out, trailing smoke from a trio of wicks. It hit the ground eighty yards out at a shallow angle, skipped off the asphalt and plowed into the Dead. Moments later, it exploded, body parts and bits of asphalt flying in all directions.

Karl let out a whoop and began resetting his weapon.

That guy enjoys his job far too much, she thought. Considering that his previous career had been in demolitions, Ellie couldn’t blame him for his enthusiasm.

“One more, Karl,” said Alan.

A minute later, Karl loosed another projectile at a shallower angle, with the same result.

Ellie looked over her shoulder. “They’re past,” she said.

“Fighting retreat!” said Lex.

She, Ellie, and Alan each fired several arrows and bolts at the Dead. Most hit their targets, half well enough to re-kill them. Karl fired a javelin through several bodies that hinged apart under the impact.

“Karl, go,” said Alan.

Moments later, Abrams thumped her retreat.

Ellie, Alan, and Lex kept firing.

“Wait for it,” said Alan, “wait for it...and...now!”

Ellie gave the command and Sally sprayed her own brand of napalm at the Dead. The fluid washed over them at thirty yards, setting most of them on fire. Several of them toppled.

“Go!” said Alan.

The three spun around and pelted across the bridge. At the far end, Tim stood with spear in hand and several others waiting.

“Get that thing closed!” Alan barked on the way past.

The screech of desks, tables, filing cabinets, and other large objects met her ears almost before she’d cleared the barricade. She slowed Sally and turned around.

“Not bad,” said Tim, “there are only, like, twelve left!”

* * *

A short while later, she nudged Sally off the highway to where the column stood fidgeting just past the junction with Arches National Park access road. Ahead and to the left, a drive led off to what she presumed to be Ranger housing. Further on, the Entrance Station--a pink-orange structure of slabs probably intended to reflect the dominant sandstone formations in the region--spanned the road.

She watched the Outfit settle into a column queuing up at the entrance gate. She shook her head. Some habits were apparently hard to break. Ellie looked at the sign declaring the vertical clearance and steered Sally into the exit lane, the juveniles right behind.

“Hey!” Beth protested. “No cuts!”

“Um,” said Frank, “it even says right there, ‘DO NOT ENTER.’” He pointed at the sign in question.

“Guys,” she said as she overtook a few of the other dinos, “you know we don't have to wait in line, right? Besides, the anks are too wide, and probably the trikes, too. And the paras are too tall.”

“Ah, come on,” said Haakon, “she's just doing justice to the park.”

“How?”

“It's a pirate's favorite.”

“What?” said Beth.

“It be Arrrrrches!”

Laughter mixed with groans.

“Haakon,” said Alan, “you're terrible.”

“I thought it was funny,” said Lex.

“That's because you're in love with him,” said Tim.

“So? I still thought it was funny.”

“Man, it's no fun to tease you about that anymore.”

Lex shrugged, the gesture half-suppressed beneath her armor. “Then don't.”

“Okay,” a woman’s voice shouted, “nobody..._holy_...!” Her last word cut off with a half-strangled squeak.

All heads swiveled toward the Entrance. Ellie easily made out a human form standing in shadow beneath the gateway arch, back-lit by the lowering sun. She wore a Ranger hat and held in each hand a rifle, both resting on the ground.

Bows, crossbows, and the outfit’s few firearms pointed in that direction. Ellie nudged Sally into a slow trot, Alan, Lex, and Tim right beside her.

“Everyone hold up!” Alan called.

Ellie brought Sally to a halt several paces from the Ranger, and dismounted. “It’s okay,” she said.

“We come in peace!” Lex added.

“Shoot to kill,” said Tim.

Ellie cleared her throat.

“Sorry,” said Tim.

“You should know,” said Ellie, “that the Knights take their jobs seriously.”

“Wh...what!?” the woman blurted.

“The Knights of Thunder,” said Lex.

“Long story,” said Ellie. “Come over and we can talk about it.”

She didn’t move.

“If we were going to make any trouble,” said Alan, “we’d be doing it by now.”

The woman stepped slowly from the shadow, clad in a Ranger uniform that had clearly seen better days. One of her weapons, Ellie now saw, was a twenty-two, the other some kind of machine gun. She wore twin revolver holsters at her hips, a belt crammed with various bulging pouches about her waist, and ammo belts across her chest. For at least a minute, she stood there, looking to all the world like a Park Service desperado out of some poorly-researched B-movie, and stared.

“We don’t bite,” said Tim.

“But some of the animals do,” said Alan, “so you might want to keep a respectful distance.”

The Ranger took a few more tentative steps closer, her head swiveling back and forth. Ellie could practically see her eyes moving behind mirrored aviator sunglasses sitting on a dirt-streaked, lightly sunburned, face. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, probably right out of a Bachelor's degree in wildlife management or something related. She wore enough dirt that she probably hadn't bathed in quite some time. Even her hair looked exactly as red as the sandstone, which it probably was. Her hat sat conspicuously askew on her head. Ellie would hardly call her the model of a Ranger.

Tim said, “Whatever happened to, ‘Welcome to the park, enjoy your stay?’”

Ellie cleared her throat again.

“Sorry,” said Tim.

“Park’s closed,” the Ranger managed. “Long story.”

“We’ll have time to tell it over dinner,” said Ellie, “if you’re up to it.”

At length, the Ranger nodded. Ellie shifted her crossbow skyward. With a slight rattle, she heard the others do the same.

“So,” said Alan, “Ranger…?”

The Ranger exhaled deeply. “Megan,” she said. “Megan Kluver. Superintendent.”

“Ellie Sattler-Grant. My husband Alan. Daughter Alicia.”

“Sir Alexis Snow,” said Lex, “and Sir Tim Murphy, Knights of Thunder.”.

“Knights, you said?” said Megan.

“It’s part of that long story,” said Alan. “How serious are you about the park being closed?”

“Not serious enough to risk being eaten by a...is that an Allosaurus?”

“Yup,” said Lex brightly. “Allosaurus fragillus. Her name’s Sundancer.”

“Skywalker,” said Tim.

The animals snorted gently.

Alan said, “Does that mean we’re free to spend a night here?”

“Like I can stop you,” Megan said.

“We make a point of not forcing the issue. Although,” he added, “if there’s no other water between here and Green River...”

She cocked her head.

“A few of us have visited before,” said Ellie. “The spring faucets are still running, I hope.”

Megan nodded.

“Good,” said Alan, “because we need it. And quite frankly, the needs of my people take priority over my respect for the Park Service.”

“We'll feed you,” said Lex.

“In exchange for...?” Megan prompted.

“Oh,” said Ellie, “no strings attached. Although if you're willing to answer some questions, we'd appreciate it.”

Megan appeared to consider that for several moments, then nodded. She slung one of her rifles, and made a beckoning gesture. “Follow me,” she said.

“Miss Ranger?” said Beth.

“Uh...yes?” said Megan.

“A couple of us have some standing arguments.”

“O...kay?”

“Well...maybe it sounds silly, but...a few of us have Park passes.”

“Oh! Well...I don't know if...”

Beth, Gail, Nate, Cindy, and Greg started bombarding Megan with questions.

“Does the pass cover camping and such?”

“Is it accepted at all Federal recreation sites?”

“Is there a senior, military, or disability discount?”

“How many people can sign an annual pass?”

“If I have more than four people on my dinosaur, how many passes do I need?”

“We're traveling on multiple dinosaurs. Does one pass cover all the dinos?”

“What about dinosaur herders who've purchased a pass?”

“How do I display my pass at unstaffed sites?”

“Can a lost or stolen pass be replaced?”

“If I forget to bring my pass to a site and pay the fee, can I get a refund?”

Megan stared at them with gaping mouth. Finally, she stammered, “Wh...what?!”

“I think,” said Alan, “they're teasing you.”

Ellie shook her head. “Guys, let's be polite to our host.”

She led Sally around the station and followed Megan on foot another hundred yards to the main parking lot. Two RV’s and a green Jeep Cherokee sat there on flat tires.

“You guys came in from the southeast, didn't you?” Megan said.

“How'd you know?”

“That's...quite the, uh, menagerie you have there. I would have noticed you coming down the grade.” Then, “Are those...Triceratops? And this is a...Para...something?”

Ellie laughed. “Parasaurolophus, yes.” She continued to enumerate on the other animals as they filed into the lot.

“How?” Megan asked, clearly awed.

“That's part of our long story. I'll be...well, not exactly happy, but I'll tell you over dinner.”

“That bad, is it?”

“Depends on your point of view, I suppose.”

“I have time.”

Ellie pulled her shades down and peered over their rims at Megan. “Be careful what you ask for, Ranger Kruger. You might regret it.”

Megan nudged down her own sunglasses and peered over their rims with a pair of intense green eyes. “I'll take my chances, Missuz Sattler-Grant.”

Ellie managed a strained smile. “Speaking of chances...” She raised her voice. “Haakon! Maybe lay off the jalapeños for our host here, okay?”

“Right! Poblanos it is, then!”

“I mean it.”

“Okay, okay.”

At Megan's raise eyebrow, Ellie said, “It's what we get when a Norwegian really digs his fingers into Tex-Mex.”

“Should I be afraid?”

“Maybe.”

Camp sprang up in near-record time. The night's sentries slunk away to the camp's edge while the dying sat together with their loved ones around a picnic table beneath a log-built shelter at the northern edge of the parking area. People drifted over and back with tear-streaked faces, while others kept their distance.

“What are they doing?” Megan asked.

Ellie looked up from the folding camp table and a wriggling Alicia. “Paying their last respects to the bitten.”

Megan looked sharply at Ellie. “You...of course you know.”

Ellie nodded and returned her attention to the baby. “It's still a bit strange. Before all this, we were used to gathering after someone had passed on.”

“Now you do all that memory-sharing and whatnot before they die.”

Ellie nodded. “Believe it or not, it's better this way.”

“And the ones who hold back?”

“They either didn't know the soon-to-go well enough, or they just can't handle it. We encourage everyone to say good bye, but leave the decision to them.”

“They'll be dead by morning, won't they?”

Ellie nodded. “And we all know it. James wants to be buried right here, probably in that loose berm behind the shelter. We have grave marker material. Jenny wants her ashes scattered over several places in Central Oregon. Frank doesn't care.”

“Won't they...” Megan trailed off.

“Reanimate? We have a dedicated pry-bar for that.”

Megan gasped. “You can't be serious.”

“It's always their last wish. That, and we insist that anyone who joins up with us agree to it. Besides, we haven't met anyone who wants to come back as the Dead. Unless you count that one cult...but I digress.”

“Wow. You people are hard-core.”

Ellie shrugged, and shifted Alicia. “We do what we have to do.”

Megan looked at her for several long moments. “A lot of people say that.”

“So they do.”

Alan walked up with two stoneware bowls of Haakon's stone soup of the day. He handed one to Ellie and one to Megan.

Megan blinked at it. “You...you weren't kidding.”

“It won't bite,” said Alan.

She took it gingerly. “You didn't have to.”

“Don't mention it.”

Ellie took a sip and flinched. “On second thought,” she said, “it does bite.”

Megan stopped with her spoon halfway to her mouth and cocked an eyebrow.

“Haakon is fond of spicing things up a bit.”

Megan sniffed at the broth, then took a tentative sip. Her eyes went wide. “Holy crap,” she breathed.

“If it's too much, I can find something else.”

Megan shook her head and took another sip.

“You still want that long story?”

The Ranger nodded.

Ellie gave Megan an abbreviated account, beginning with Hammond's project, and progressing through the escape from Nublar, the arduously circuitous trek across Central America, the horrifying Mexico/US border crossing, and the often-annoying and zig-zagging route through Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah.

By the time Ellie had finished, a solid stream of tears had scoured a strip of dust off Megan's face. She made a series of noises that sounded like an attempt at, “I can't feel my mouth.”

“I'd offer to make Haakon do a few punishment burpees, but most of us regard this as a sort of rite of passage.”

“I believe you,” Megan breathed.

“Besides,” Ellie added, “he's an amputee. Which, to his credit, doesn't stop him from trying.”

Megan cocked an eyebrow, and wiped her bowl with a shard of fresh biscuit and chased that down with a swallow of Squeaky Nut Ale salvaged from the Moab Brewery. “You really slogged through Moab?”

“We didn't have much choice. Going around wasn't workable. And we're always on the lookout for supplies.”

“Who isn't?” She set her bowl on the ground beside her. “I suppose it's my turn.”

Ellie nodded.

Megan took a deep breath, looked off toward the vague distance, and began, her mouth somewhat cotton-sounding at first.

“It started three years ago. A lot I heard second-hand, some of it was in the newspaper, some from the rumor mill, that sort of thing. Some of it might not be entirely accurate. The Hendricks boy, Jimmy...don't expect you to know who that is...was...no relation to the guitarist...anyway, he was bitten by a deer. His mom took him to the hospital. He died the next day. The day after that, he woke up and bit a nurse. I heard they figured it was some kind of coma. They tried to sedate him and nothing worked. He bit several more people...three...seven...the numbers changed and I never saw anything close to an official report.”

“It was nine,” said Ellie.

Megan looked sharply at her.

“We sent a salvage team to the hospital. One of our guys snooped through the records.”

Megan swallowed. “Anyway, whatever it was that happened to Jimmy also happened to some other people. Word on the street was some kind of rabies. Of course, no one really panicked. 'Oh, we have shots for that.' Same with Lyme disease, bubonic plague, and so on.

“They never caught the deer, and it showed up elsewhere in town and bit someone else. A few someone elses. Two of them checked into the hospital. The others? General opinion is...was...that they thought they could just put some hydrogen peroxide on it and call it good. Only they just died, and then later woke up and bit some other people.

“The deer bit a dog, the dog died, woke up, then bit its owners. And on and on. Two weeks later, the hospital had been...well, I guess you know enough of that, don't you? One by one, my coworkers...those who lived in town, that is...stopped showing up for their shifts. Two weeks after that, the whole place dissolved into chaos.

“The County Sheriff put together a posse and ordered a general evacuation. Not that it did much good. Between full-time residents and visitors, that was somewhere around seven thousand people, and that was in the off season! With only three routes out of town, you can probably imagine how that went. And the order came far too late anyway.

“Some people got out. Mostly RV's and people on road trips. Others on bicycles or on foot, and some of those cross-country. I'm still finding their remains out there.

“But some of us, I'd say a couple hundred or so, were stuck here. We built the barriers at the Colorado River bridges, mostly using furniture we dragged out of the Fairfield Inn. That helped a little. Until the out-of-towners started rolling through. The posse mostly got them to keep going, but some of them stopped at RV parks or along the road. A couple of them set up over there in main lot, even after we told them that the Park had been closed until further notice.

“Most of them eventually moved on. The ones on this side of town, anyway. We knew about a few out at Devils Garden, but we never saw them again. Their trailers, sure, but not them. We figure they'd been bitten, eaten, or maybe had a run-in with a rattler while hunting for deer or squirrels, or just taking a pee or...well, there are plenty of ways to die out there, especially when you don't know the desert.

“We thought about trying to find them, but most of us didn't have good enough tracking skills. We could follow a deer or a hiker through sand or decent dirt. But anything beyond that was above our pay grade. Actually, there was this one guy, but he was bitten pretty early on.

“Of course, the Dead found their way across the river. Or maybe they were washed down from upstream somewhere. Probably Grand Junction, but we never found out for sure.

“Two more of us were bitten and died before we figured out how to kill...re-kill, I guess...the Dead.

“We started a veggie garden out back in the spring and occasionally ventured into town. Risky business, that. Had to dispatch several of them on the way in and out every time. Every so often, one of us would be bitten. There were thirty-seven of us the week after the Evacuation. Two years later, it was just me.

“Every now and then, I saw someone drift by along the highway. Sometimes a lone traveler, usually on a bicycle, occasionally on horseback, sometimes pairs of people, occasionally a group of up to a dozen or so. Saw some motorcycles a couple of times, but those were all in the early days. I haven't seen much running on gasoline in well over a year.

“For a while, we tried to phone people we knew, at home, at the Regional Headquarters. Hell, once we even called the main offices of the National Park Service in DC! There were conflicting reports at first. No one believed us. Only occasionally did someone agree that something odd was going on. But as the weeks turned into months, people stopped answering calls. The mail mostly dried up. And the only thing we got from DC was voice-mail. Even that eventually turned into an error tone.

“Sometimes I thought about going out to check. I did once. It...didn't go well. And no, I don't want to talk about it, so don't ask. You're the first people who've actually stopped here.”

For a short while, silence fell.

“So why didn't you just go?” Ellie asked.

Megan shrugged. “Go where? It's like Mad Max out there! You said so yourself. So what's the point? Besides, it's been hard enough trying to find enough food for just me, nevermind trying to stock up enough for a cross-country trek.”

“You could come with us.”

Megan sat up straight. “Are you sure?”

“We have room. And you're alone.”

“Well...not entirely.”

“I thought,” said Ellie, “you said there wasn't anyone else here at the Park.”

Megan shook her head. “There isn't. But there's a family upriver a few miles who managed to hang on behind a palisade fort. And there's a small band of nomadic Indians...well, they THINK they're Indians...who drift through every now and then.”

“Why did they leave so much salvage in town?”

“Because they think they're Indians and it's apparently 'not the Navajo way,' or some nonsense.”

“I didn't think this was Navajo territory.”

Megan shook her head. “It isn't. It's Ute territory. That's how Utah got its name.”

“Then why are they calling themselves Navajo?”

“Because they're stupid?” Megan paused. “Sorry, I didn't mean that. Okay, yeah, I did, it's just really unprofessional of me. The truth is that most Americans think they know a lot more about Indians than they actually do, and even that isn't saying a whole lot. There's enough misinformation about Native Americans floating around out there to choke a hundred of the Dead. So these guys, they just took what they thought they knew, crammed it together with what they did know, learned a little more, and out popped something out of a cheesy Western movie. Heck, even the average Louis L'Amour novel is more accurate. It's like a post-apocalyptic novel come to life.”

Ellie chucked. “That's an understatement. So, what's kept you here? Don't tell me it's just because it's your job.”

Megan shrugged. “Who else is going to look after the Park? You've seen what happens to these places during a government shut-down. And I think this kind of qualifies.”

“That's not it.” At Megan's frown, Ellie continued. “I think it's mostly because it represents security, and you're desperately clinging to the last shred of sanity in a world that's still rapidly falling apart. A world that's never coming back. These last few years mark the end of the Anthropocene and the beginning of the Thanatocene.”

“That's...deep. Waist-deep.”

“It's true. And it's something we've seen with everyone we've encountered since Nublar. Why don't you join us?”

“I thought I just did.”

“I mean, permanently. We need each other. You need companionship, and we sure could use someone who knows something about the regional geography. Most of what Alan and I remember is from our undergraduate and graduate studies, and those were mainly limited to the Grand Canyon, Vernal, and various other fossil beds. We just lost our doctor, and you have more than basic medical training.”

“Wilderness first-aid, mostly. And a start on what amounts to EMS.”

“It's better than what we have.”

“Can I sleep on it?”

“Sure. I'd like to tell you to take as much time as you need, but we plan to move out in the morning. We'll pick you up on our way back to the highway junction.”

Megan nodded. “Sure. I'd thank you for dinner, but I'm not sure my digestion would agree.”

Ellie laughed. “I know the feeling. Believe me, when you've spent this long eating chilis with most meals, you get used to it.”

Megan shook Ellie's hand and wandered off toward her domicile.

“You think she'll join up?” Alan asked moments later.

“I don't know. Maybe. But I think she knows it's a dead end staying here. What did the medical team salvage?”

“Pain-killers of several types, antibiotics, saline, anesthetics, packaged sterile pads and surgical tools, syringes, nutritional supplements, shelf-stable medications, that sort of thing.”

“Grab-and-go?”

Alan nodded. “Some of it we've already rejected for the usual reasons.”

“Well, if Megan decides to join, we could use her expertise on that, too.”

“But we got Haakon's prosthesis.”

“Oh, good.”

“But,” Alan added with a soft laugh, “he might have to wear one of Alexis' heels on it.”

Ellie barely suppressed a snerk. “Oh, I want to see the look on both their faces when you suggest it.”

“Me?”

“Fine, I'll do it. It should be worth a laugh. We could sure use some of that right now.” She looked toward the picnic shelter and sighed. “I should pay my respects while everyone's still coherent.”

“I'll join you.”

An hour later, as daylight turned to twilight and the last of the day's rays slipped from the rock above, Ellie nestled against Alan. “When did you first notice,” she asked him, “that towns gave you the willies?”

“I've never liked towns, Ellie. That's one reason I went into paleontology. You know that.”

“That's not what I mean.”

Alan chuckled slightly. “I know, I know.”

“What I mean is, Moab was once a nice little town. Lots of character, despite the, uh, yuppification, as the kids would put it. It would have been a nice place for a vacation. I can imagine strolling along downtown, or visiting the local museum, and so on. But these last few days?” She shuddered.

Alan held her close. Alicia stirred, made a gurgling noise, then settled down again. All around, the familiar sights and sounds of camp went on.

At one point, Lex began to sing.

Lay down your sweet and weary head  
Night is falling, you have come to journey's end...

A few lines later, Ellie and a host of others joined in the chorus

What can you see on the horizon?  
Why do the white gulls call?

By the time the song had finished, Ellie had tears streaming down her cheeks. In the darkness, several other people sobbed audibly, a few others raising keening wails to the star-strewn sky.

Steve and Gail volunteered to sit up with the bitten all night. Ellie couldn't bear to see the haunted looks in their eyes. The final hours were the toughest. It had always been one thing to watch an elderly grandmother slip away after a protracted illness. It was quite another to see an otherwise healthy person slide quickly toward the jaws of certain death. There was something about it that differed markedly from every other illness. She'd seen some of the nastiest diseases known to mankind take colleagues and acquaintances, mostly in the field, though sometimes at home.

She'd come to the conclusion that in most of those cases, there had always been hope that the patient might recover. Until recently, she'd only known of one ailment that was one hundred percent fatal, and that was cancer, and then only certain cancers.

No other disease she knew acted as quickly, either. The three out beneath the shelter would be dead by sunrise. To know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they'd seen their last sunset, eaten their last meal, had their last kiss, and perhaps their last shag...well, it was basically an execution. A long, painful, very tearful execution.

Ellie was pretty sure each of their loved ones was going to get completely crap-faced drunk that night. And as per tradition, no one was about to give them any crap about it. Oh, they would have to deal with hangovers in the morning. But in the face of overwhelming grief, a hangover was hardly a concern.

Beth took suicide watch that night. Which basically amounted to nursing a particularly nice beer, starting with a Moab Brewery Squeaky Bike Nut Brown Ale, and moving on to a Moab Especial and an Over the Top Hefeweisen, finishing up with a bottle of pink Strongbow cider, all night while her charges got themselves smashed.

In the berm behind the shelter, two large pits stood open awaiting James and Frank. At the edge of the parking lot, a couple of gas cans and a pile of scrap lumber sat waiting for Jenny.

In the center of the parking lot, a few tents glowed. Somewhere in the gathering darkness, crickets began to chirp. The low flame of a small campfire lit on a raised tripod brasier provided a warm light. Even the asphalt released heat it had collected from the sun that day.

* * *

The sun rose on two small mounds and a pile of human ashes. Following a nondenominational eulogy given by Alan, Lex led everyone in “The Parting Glass.”

After the song's conclusion, the departeds' loved ones tossed the final shovels full of sand and gravel over the bodies. Tears streamed down their cheeks in trails glistening in the golden glow of sunrise. Most of them stood there for a time afterward, just crying.

An hour later, Ellie saluted the fresh graves before turning Sally toward the Park's exit, letting another tear trickle down her face. The Entrance Station looked just as it had when they'd arrived, and would probably remain unchanged for decades, if not centuries.

Megan stood at the junction between Arches Entrance Road and the Park Employees' access drive, astride a green mountain bike with shock-absorbing front forks. A pair of large, stuffed duffel bags and a fully-loaded internal frame pack sat lashed to a small trailer and a pair of large cyclist's saddlebags hung behind her seat. Two water bottles sat in wire holders mounted to the frame. She'd shed her National Park Service uniform and sturdy hiking boots in favor of a long-sleeved sage-green top and cycling shorts that revealed a pair of lean, muscular legs, and sturdy hiking sandals. She'd exchanged her Ranger hat for a green helmet beneath which her wavy ponytailed hair protruded.

Ellie smiled. “I was hoping you'd say yes,” she said.

“I was out of options.”

“So what changed your mind?” Alan asked. “You didn't seem terribly excited about the idea of joining up last night.”

Megan looked past the caravan to the Park entrance and sighed. “I figured the Park and its features have been here for thousands of years. They're not going anywhere. I mean, it's not like someone is just going to show up with a few bulldozers and tear up the place, now, is it?” She chuckled. 

“And I like what I saw. You have a community. Not just a war band or a biker gang. You people care about each other. You don't always get along, I could tell that much even when I was telling my story yesterday. But you care. And your singing brought me to tears. Besides,” she added, “my vibrator crapped out a few months back.”

Tim roared with laughter.

“Tim,” said Ellie, “it's not funny.”

“Yes, it is!” he laughed.

“Tim...” said Alan.

“Nah,” said Megan, “I don't mind. Anyway, I left a detailed note in the office, you know, just in case anyone is crazy enough to try checking in. I would have changed the voice-mail message, but, well, no power.”

“Welcome to the insanity, then,” said Ellie.

Megan chuckled nervously. “Thanks. I think.” She kicked a pedal into a ready position. “Do I have a spot?”

“Just fall in wherever,” said Alan. “You can stow your gear on one of the wagons if you want.”

“I'll carry my own weight.”

“Suit yourself. But if you change your mind...”

“I'll remember that.”

“Alright, then. And if you have any relevant navigation suggestions, do speak up.”

“Sure thing.”

“Oh,” Alan added, “and we have a few traffic regulations.”

Megan groaned. “Of course you do.”

“No more than twenty yards in front of the convoy. Tim and Alexis usually take point. Speak up if you have any problems. And be courteous.”

“That's it?”

“Pretty much.”

Megan nodded. “When do I sign that, um, agreement you mentioned yesterday?”

Ellie said, “We usually give people a few days. Mainly to make sure they're a good fit for us.”

“So, by the time we reach Green River?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Ellie nudged Sally into a trudge. Megan stood on her bike pedals and the bike slowly started moving. Ellie wondered how well the woman could keep that up, especially after the promised grade up Moab Canyon.

One by one, each beast pulled out onto the otherwise vacant highway and headed west. The sun warmed Ellie's back, driving off what remained of the night's chill. Megan pulled ahead, already breathing hard. Ellie suppressed the urge to remind her about overexertion. Ah, the hubris of youthful energy.

“Don't get too far ahead, young lady!” Alan called.

“Yes, Dad,” Megan replied.

“I mean it, Megan. We have a protocol for that. Fifty yards, max, with limited exceptions.”

“Now you tell me,” Megan called back over her shoulder.

Ellie watched Megan maneuver around a drift of orange sand stretching halfway across the roadbed and shook her head. If that woman didn't poop out before they crested out, it would be a minor miracle.

After a short while, Lex began to sing.

Through Rohan over fen and field where the long grass grows  
The West Wind comes walking, and about the walls it goes.   
What news from the West, O wandering wind, do you bring to me tonight?   
Have you seen Boromir the Tall by moon or by starlight?  
I saw him ride over seven streams, over waters wide and grey...


	10. But That's Not What I'm Gonna Do

Ellie reined Sally to a halt atop the overpass where Ruby Ranch Rd. crossed Interstate 70 to become Old Hwy. 6 & 50. Megan let her bike roll to a stop. A hundred feet behind them, the convoy loitered a dozen paces from the freeway ramps.

Long shadows stretched westward in the rising sun, falling on the dual ribbon of nearly-deserted asphalt. Below the bridge, a semi-truck lay on its side, shreds of packaging material strewn from its disemboweled trailer. Clusters of sun-bleached bone lay scattered about. A half set of tire tracks ran across a drift of sandy dust edging onto the roadbed.

Megan exhaled heavily. “Another fifteen miles that way.” She pointed westward and groaned. “I'm not used to it taking three full days to make a trip that used to take an hour.”

Megan craned her neck up at Ellie, eyes hidden behind single-pane cyclist's sunglasses. Ellie's mountaineering shades still hung about her neck, unneeded in the comparatively weak morning light. “You'll adapt,” she said. Then, “How are your legs?”

“Better, I think.”

“You think?”

“They don't hurt as long as I'm moving.”

Ellie smiled. “Then we should get moving, I guess. The freeway or the old road, do you think?”

Megan looked toward the roads and the set of mesas to the north. “Normally, I might take the old road. I liked to imagine what it was like before the Interstates went through, or before someone in an office at this or that highway department decided something needed straightening or widening. In a lot of places, you can still see where the road used to go, and sometimes it's even drivable.

“Off the beaten path, too. More character. No semi trucks riding your butt, either. Farm equipment or logging trucks, maybe. Not here, sure. But in some places.”

Ellie sighed heavily. “I know what you mean,” she said, “I've tromped a lot of ground, both before and since. It's led me to a lot of places like this. And I always wonder. Why this or that town was started in the first place. How it grew, what made it dry up, what keeps it hanging on. Sometimes you can find it in museums or libraries, and sometimes not. Either way, I find myself visualizing that past.”

“I didn't think you were old enough to get nostalgic.”

Ellie laughed. “And just how old do you think I have to be for that?”

“I don't know. I guess it's just that I always thought nostalgia was something one's parents' generation did.”

Ellie shook her head. “Nah, it's more of a recollection of a past that may not have happened. The way I remember my girlhood is not the way my parents do. You hear people talk about 'the Good Old Days,' but those times were seldom like that. No, I think it's more the contrast with the here and now. That we grow up to become mired in the complexities of life. We think back to our youth, those times when all we had to worry about were things like homework, learning to drive, and fretting about whether or not so-and-so was going to ask us to the Prom. And sometimes we think about the economic outlook before globalization began to suck the life out of American manufacturing, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Never mind that our parents didn't also have to figure out how to pay the bills and all that.

“I think places like this represent something we lost. Something we should have tried harder to hold onto.”

“But nothing lasts. It always wears down and falls apart. We of all people should realize that. Scientifically, of course.”

Ellie smiled knowingly. “Of course. Everything is also renewed, don't forget.”

Megan sighed. “I hadn't thought about it that way. Maybe it's just because I'm young and unjaded, right?”

Ellie chuckled. “You whippersnappers and your rosy futures!” she said in her best granny voice. “Now get the hell off my damned lawn!”

Megan laughed. “From what I saw just between the Park and the airport, I'd be surprised if we didn't have to break out the shovels again if you go that way.”

Ellie grunted. “Sometimes I wish we didn't have the trailers. But only sometimes. The Interstate it is, then. Oh, and be sure to eat a few more of those PowerBars than you did yesterday.”

Megan made a face. “Doctor,” she said, “if I have to choke down one more of those things...”

Ellie chuckled.

“What?”

“It's just that I can relate. I can't stand those things either. Ever hear of Cliff Bar?”

Megan nodded. “Yeah, I had a couple of friends who swore those were going to be the next big thing in hiker food. The guy who made them couldn't stand PowerBars either, so he made his own based on oats and brown rice syrup.”

“Good stuff. Haakon developed something similar. Well, similar-ish. He does them in a Dutch oven when he has ingredients and opportunity. If Green River State Park is as you say, he should have time to make up some more.”

“I'll look forward to it.”

Megan stood on the pedals and slowly began to move, her grunt audible as she passed. Ellie twisted around and made an expansive gesture toward the west before following Megan across the overpass and onto the west-bound ramp. The rest of the convoy ignored the traditional direction of travel as it filed onto the freeway along the offramp, and angled across the broad, lightly-vegetated median onto the west-bound lanes.

The convoy settled into its usual configuration. The bigger dinos clustered in the center, two abreast with their trailers creaking along behind them. Equines and their riders flanked along on the gravel shoulders. Alan, Lex, and Tim took point with a couple of cyclists, Ellie hanging back a couple of lengths. Behind, the small herds of Protoceratops, llamas, and various others. The pair of anks and two more cyclists brought up the rear.

Tim took the opportunity to begin a rousing song.

We're not gonna take it  
No, we ain't gonna take it  
We're not gonna take it anymore....

Several hours, a few uneventful drainage-crossings, and a dozen miles of boredom later, Ellie thumped up behind the knot of leaders at the offramp to Green River. Ahead, Main St. spanned the highway.

“Doesn't look like much,” Tim called.

“It's another couple of miles off the freeway,” said Megan, pointing northwestward. “Over there,” she pointed southward, “is New Area Fifty-One Rd. And...”

“Area Fifty-One?” said Tim excitedly. “Are there aliens?”

“Uh...no, I don't think so. Don't ask me why someone called it that.”

“Maybe it's a diversion. Maybe the real Area Fifty-One is here and the one in Nevada is a decoy.”

“Tim,” said Lex, “your nerd is showing.”

“Says Missuz 'This is UNIX, I know this.'”

“Ha, ha. Besides, that would make Haakon Mister 'This is UNIX, I know this.' I love him to pieces, but I wouldn't even trust him with DOS.”

“I hate to break it to you,” said Alan, “but I don't think computers are going to matter much for a while.”

“Good,” said Megan. “I never really liked those things anyway.”

“I hate them, too,” said Alan. “Almost as much as I hate the Dead.”

A half mile later, Main St. merged with the old highway into a rough east-west alignment. Amid the grey-beige dirt stood the burned-out husk of a Burger King attached to an equally burned-out Phillips 66 gas station. The scorched shells of several vehicles sat beside what remained of the pumps. Beside that stood a fire-gutted Super-8 motel. Bits of bleached bone littered the parking lot and the adjacent land.

They plodded past a few vacant lots and the scorched ruin of three motels amid a tract of charred sagebrush north of the road, and drew up a hundred yards from the river crossing.

“Right,” said Alan, “Gail, Alexis, Tim, scout for a pool.” He gestured toward the Motel 6, KOA, and Skyfall on the left. “We'll hold up here.”

The trio took off. “What do you think, Megan?” Alan asked.

“I think it'll be a minor miracle if I can feel my legs tomorrow. Barring that? I think we should set up in the park and then shuttle back here for a swim,” she said.

“I don't know,” said Ellie. “I think I can speak for most of us when I say that I'm not going to want to back-track, even for that.”

“But we need it,” said Beth.

“She's right,” said Steve. “We haven't had more than sponge baths in weeks. And the portable shower we set up in Moab didn't really cut it.”

“It did the job.”

“Sort of.”

“You're just saying that because you're...”

“Okay, okay,” said Alan. “The last three days put a week's worth of dust and dirt on us, I'll be the first to say it. Let's put this one to a vote. If there's a pool and it's safe, who wants to pause for a dip?”

Most hands went up. Alan looked at Megan. “How far to the park?”

“The regular way, quarter mile, I guess. The access road is a few minutes past the bridge. So...yeah, I think we have time.”

A minute later, the three returned. “Good news and bad news,” said Lex. “All three places have pools. One's full of sh...er, crap. One has an all-dead body in it. The KOA one looks good, although it looks like at least half the chlorine has worn off. Or whatever chlorine does. And it'll need more water.”

“Good work,” said Alan. “Okay, we'll do this in shifts, ladies first.”

An hour later, Ellie watched the Green River come into view below the bridge. The eponymous water bore a distinctive olive hue. Long sand-and-gravel bars mid-river supported small willows.

“Uh, Megan,” said Tim, “are all the rivers out here as murky as this?”

“Pretty much,” said Megan.

Minutes later, Megan led them past several unpromising businesses, two of which showed signs of fire, one of not-so-subtle forced entry.

“Shady Acres RV Park,” Lex read aloud from a sign on the left. “Gee, that doesn't sound ominous at all.”

“Pets welcome,” Tim read, “No pitbulls please.” He tipped his head back and laughed.

Lex joined him. “What would they say about dinosaurs, I wonder.”

One of the Bicentenaria let out a low growl.

Ellie looked down the dusty drive toward the half-dozen RVs glinting in the sunlight. “I don't think we want to find out,” she said.

“We might still have to, uh, what do you call it,” said Megan, “clear it?”

“Yes, why?” said Alan.

“Because the back side of the State Park butts against the back of Shady Acres.”

“Oh, joy,” said Tim.

“All in the line of duty,” Lex said.

Megan led them past a swath of shaggy grass and onto Green River Blvd. The road ran south, past the Green River Senior Center, the occasional stick-built house with at least one dead tree in the landscaping, a couple of vacant lots overgrown with weedy grass, and on the left, a continuous swath of knee-high grass that had once been a golf course.

After a short while, a pair of white sheet-metal buildings crept into view behind a six-foot barbed-wire-topped chain-link fence.

In a cinder-block planter overgrown with weeds stood a dark brown sign mounted on twin wooden posts. On it, “Green River State Park” stood out in large white lettering above a line-drawing depicting a pair of people standing beside a beached boat. Below that, a russet sign displayed park-standard icons for Camping, RV Space, Electrical Hookup, RV Dump, and Showers. Beyond that stood a single post with a russet sign reading “FEE AREA” and a smaller sign below that with a dog and the words “ALL DOGS MUST BE LEASHED.”

The park's access road split at an off-white entrance station. On a pole above it, American and Utah flags fluttered in a late-afternoon breeze. To its left lay a large white propane tank behind the chain-link fence surrounding the golf course maintenance yard.

Between Green River Blvd. and the entrance station, a pair of trailer pads jutted off to the right. A single sign read, “CAMP HOST.” One pad was vacant, the other occupied by an older Airstream. At least two seasons of leaf litter and twigs lay on the trailer’s roof.

“Hello, the camp!” Alan called. Only the usual rustling sounds of fidgeting animals, their intermittent snorts, and the low murmurs of a few people punctuated by a child's intermittent fussing merged with the rustle of leaves in the early summer foliage. Alan repeated it, more loudly, pitching his voice to carry a little better. Still no response.

“Megan,” said Ellie, “where did you say was the best place to turn around if we have to?”

Megan exhaled through her lips. “There might be a couple of private drives ahead. Maybe that private campground up there. Otherwise, a loop through the park.”

Alan grunted, pushed his helm back a little, and nudged Asfaloth into a slow walk. Ellie, Lex, Tim, and Megan followed, bows and crossbows ready.

Through a gap in the foliage, Ellie had a good look at the Camp Host's space as Sally plodded past. An awning fixed to the trailer spread over a sturdy metal picnic table strewn with barely-identifiable objects. A large cottonwood branch, still attached at one end, breached the awning in a tangle of shredded canvas and broken twigs.

Megan leaned over from her bicycle and peered through the entrance station's window, hands shielding her vision. “Nobody's home,” she declared.

A few yards beyond, a paved path crossed the drive, vanishing into the park in both directions. Just past that, the drive made a bend to the right and forked. A sign directed visitors toward a boat ramp ahead, and campsites to the right.

Alan took the right fork into an expansive grove of cottonwood and black locust undergrown with the same knee-high shaggy grass and weeds they'd seen on the erstwhile golf course. Mats of dried greenish-grey silt lay in various depressions.

A minute later, they passed a park-standard restroom/shower building. A dozen empty parking spaces lay in front.

Megan coasted on ahead and vanished around a left-trending curve while the others thumped along. Minutes later, Megan looped around behind.

“It's abandoned,” she said. “If it hit here around the same time as Moab, the park would have been closed at the time.”

“But Arches wasn't,” Tim said.

“Some parks don't close. Others do. Or partially. It's quite common for State Parks to close their campgrounds seasonally. Not sure why the Camp Host was still here. You'd have to ask someone about that.”

“Any sign of the Dead?” Lex asked.

“Or anything else?” Alan added.

Megan shook her head. “Not in this loop. Maybe in the other one, but I doubt it.”

The other adjacent loop showed no sign of habitation either. One of its legs passed a long pond. A sign informed visitors of fishing opportunities for bass, trout, bluegill, and catfish, with a further reminder that a Utah State fishing license was required.

Past a small ditch choked with cattails, the drive emerged into a large graveled area off the pavement. A brown Chevy Suburban hooked to a boat trailer sat on the gravel, yellowing grass sprouting around flat tires. A large, roofed picnic shelter stood adjacent to a dozen parking spaces. Across the drive, a small cabin stood beside a tree, with more grass and cottonwoods beyond that.

“Well,” said Ellie, “what does everyone think?”

“Looks good to me,” said Alan. “Shade for us. Forage for the animals.”

“Gods know they need it,” said Ellie.

“Never mind the animals,” said Megan, “the rest of us need it, too. And I've only been on the move for a few days.”

“I could do with a week in a place like this,” said Lex.

“As long as the Dead don't come surging out of the river,” said Tim.

“You're no fun.”

As dusk fell, animals grazed the still-green grass and dome tents glowed beneath the cooling sky.

* * *

The day dawned in its familiar way. Sunrise spilled across a deep blue sky, painting the upper rim of Little Elliott Mesa to the north in blazing gold. A mist lay in wispy stripes above the golf-course-turned-meadow and the sluggish Green River beyond. Beasts grunted and snorted at random and a few early risers rustled nylon sleeping bags and tent zippers.

During the few groggy minutes between sleep and waking, Ellie could almost have mistaken the scene for one of the long-distance backpacking treks she'd taken during the long summers of her teens and the months between undergrad terms. Almost.

The last shreds of sleepiness slipped away and all the familiar forms resolved. The wagons and trailers. The dinosaurs, equines, camelids, and others. The curves and lines of tents pitched beneath the trees on patches of cleared grass scythed the previous day and raked into fodder piles.

Alicia let out a quiet stutter and waved her stubby limbs.

Alan emerged from their tent and wrapped his arms around her. She leaned back against him and sighed. For several moments, they stood like that, just watching the camp and the slow sunrise.

“This almost seems normal,” he said quietly.

“Alan, this _is_ normal.”

“You know what I mean.”

She nodded. “That this could have been any summer morning before all this. It's what I saw before my brain finished waking up. A State Park full of vacationing families in Suburbans and Winnebagos. Then it all faded away, replaced by all of this.” She made an encompassing gesture. “And you know what? I've stopped thinking of it as anything unusual.”

She handed the baby to Alan. “I'll be back in a few,” she said.

Ellie grabbed a six-foot bamboo spear leaning against a tree, slung it over her shoulder, and strode across the ankle-high stubble, grass stubble scraping the sides of her feet around her flip-flops. A score of dozing dinos shifted and snored, otherwise boulder-like. She rounded the corner of the restroom building.

Nate approached from the other direction, fishing pole in hand. “Ellie?” he said quietly. “I think you should see this.”

“Can it wait a minute?” Ellie asked.

“Uh...sure. I'll wait.”

Ellie nodded thanks and ducked into the Ladies' room. A modified Coleman lantern sat on a bench along one wall, gently warming the space as it cast its pale yellow light. A few minutes later, she dried her cleaned hands on a towel and walked back into the chilly morning air.

“What was it you wanted to show me?” she asked Nate.

He jerked his head toward the pond and strode in that direction. He led her wordlessly across the asphalt and then along a path that emerged shortly onto a small beach of fine gravel a dozen yards wide sloping gently to the water.

Nate pointed his pole at the gravel's edge where sedges encroached. Ellie grounded the butt of her spear and knelt down for a closer look. A few clumps and stems had been bent down and a small half-footprint showed in the dewy gravel where a dozen strands of dead grass lay crushed.

Ellie spotted another print nearer the water's edge, and a third further up the bank. She followed a string of weakly trampled and bent grass several yards back to the asphalt. She sighed.

“We have company, don't we?” Nate asked quietly.

“Or the other way around. I'll put Greg and Cindy on this. Alan thinks they're getting bored.”

“Should I still try for breakfast?” Nate asked.

Ellie considered that for a moment. “Eventually,” she said at length. “I'll be back in a minute. And don't go wading in that,” she added, pointing at the water.

“Ah, come on. It's me!”

“I know. That's why I said it.”

She walked halfway around the loop, through some more scythed grass, and past a lightly dozing chilesaur, an eight-foot female covered with jet-black fluff marked with white on tail-tip, belly, feet, and snout. The animal raised her head, saw Ellie and half-sprang to her feet, wagging her tail. She butted Ellie's hand in a feline manner. Ellie giggled and scritched the animal's head.

“How are you doing, Maihee?” she asked softly. Maihee cooed in response.

She stepped over to a camo-pattern dome tent and shook it.

“Guys?” she said.

A pair of not-so-muffled voices muttered back at her.

“Your services are in demand,” she said.

After a considerable amount of rustling nylon, the tent unzipped and Greg stuck his head out. He blinked blearily at Ellie. “Go on,” he said.

“We found some tracks by the pond. Small footprints. Possibly human.”

Greg straightened up, suddenly alert. “We'll be right out,” he grunted.

A minute later, he and Cindy stumbled out in shorts, T-shirts, and Tevas. “Show us,” said Cindy. She twisted her hair into a ponytail, shoved it under a floppy camo hat, and grabbed her crossbow. “Maihee, heel,” she said.

Ellie led them back to the pond. Nate showed them what he'd shown Ellie. Greg and Cindy made hmming sounds almost in unison.

“You're right,” said Cindy. “Small child. Probably still alive, too.”

The pair slowly followed the prints to the same spot on the asphalt's edge where Ellie had lost the trail.

Cindy squatted down and peered at the pavement while Greg scanned it.

“Man,” said Cindy in her distinct Texan drawl, “it's gonna be tough to track this, what with all our gaddin' about yesterday.”

“You lost it, then?” said Nate.

She snorted. “I said tough, not impossible.” She craned her head up and grinned.

She returned her attention to the pavement. Presently, Cindy pointed to a small bit of brown material. “That don't belong right here,” she said. A few moments later, she found another.

Maihee shoved her nose nearly into the brown bit and sniffed at it.

Greg pointed to a bit of grass a few yards away and then at a discolored spot.

“That could be anything,” said Nate. “Like someone's oil pan.”

“Wrong color,” Greg said. He bent over and peered at it. “Diffusion pattern's all wrong for oil.” He wiped a finger on it, then sniffed it. “No oily residue, either. And there's a distinctly fishy smell.”

“Yep,” said Cindy, “I'd say the same person who left them prints was carryin' a fish an' it done dripped.”

Maihee sniffed at it, craned her neck around, and sneezed, her stubby ear appendages flapping in a canine manner. “She agrees,” said Cindy.

Greg pointed. “There's another one...and another...and another.”

They followed the trail of widely-spaced, nearly-invisible, drops down the loop and into the adjacent one. When the drops ceased, Greg or Cindy paused, and one or the other of them noticed another clue, then another, and another. A broken twig here, a bit of thread there, a strand of pale hair.

They tracked their quarry to the Camp Host trailer, approaching along a well-worn path through the grass between Loop A's restroom building and the site.

Ellie flipped her spear around into an underhanded ready position.

Ellie grunted. From ground level, she noticed several things she hadn't seen from the park's entrance drive.

In the grass beside a tree, most of a ribcage showed through a mange of brown and off-white fur. Its ear and both eyes were missing and only one leg remained attached to the body.

“Was that...a beagle?” she asked.

“Looks like,” said Cindy. “Been dead a while. Last summer, I'd say. Maybe longer.”

Ellie grunted. She'd long ago lost count of the remains, both human and not, she'd encountered since Nublar. “I hope it died quickly,” she said.

A small swarm of flies buzzed over a barely-visible clump of something laying at the base of another tree trunk. The faint smell of days-old decomp wafted from that direction. A small metal pail, half-full of dirty water, sat beside the picnic table beneath the trailer's awning. Cindy pointed to that and one end of the table.

“See that?” she said. “One end's been kept clear.” She bent over at the waist and peered at the ground. “Someone's livin' here.”

All eyes turned toward the trailer. A brown swath stood out against the door and the surrounding metal. Ellie immediately recognized the familiar blood-smear pattern.

“The Dead were trying to get in,” she said.

“Wonder why they left,” said Nate.

“Besides the usual reasons?”

Cindy pointed at the door. “Handle's been cleaned.” She peered closely. “More like worn off.”

“So,” said Greg, “who's going to knock?”

Nate stepped forward and rapped smartly on an unmarred section of the door's glass. No response.

“We won't hurt you,” said Ellie. “We're here to help!”

Greg and Cindy raised their weapons, and Ellie brought her spear into a ready position. She nodded at Nate. He twisted the handle and heaved on the door. It opened with a creak of poorly-lubricated hinges and flexing rubber weatherstripping.

A slight puff of stale air wafted from inside. Light spilled through the door onto worn pea-green carpeting and medium-brown wood paneling.

“Come on out,” said Ellie. “We're not going to hurt you.”

Still nothing.

“You think they're even in there?” said Greg.

Cindy looked away from the door and glanced slowly around the campsite. “There's sign all over,” she said. “Some of it's recent, and some ain't. I'd have to get my nose right down on the ground to tell you which is which.”

Maihee took a step forward, her muzzle twitching.

“Maihee, heel,” said Cindy.

The chilesaur made a soft whining sound.

“She thinks there's someone in there,” said Greg.

Ellie sighed. “There's only one way to find out.” She propped her spear against the table and stepped toward the trailer.

“Are you sure that's a good idea?” said Nate.

“If they were Dead, they'd have come out already.”

“Okay,” said Greg, “but for the record, we protested.”

“So noted,” said Ellie. She took the two steps, the trailer rocking with each one.

Diffuse light filtered through windows made dirty by dust, tree debris, and a little dried blood. The carpet had a conspicuous wear pattern in the center and a few patches of bare threads, some of it slightly frayed near the margins. The wood at the edges of cupboards and drawers showed wear from more than two decades of use. Veneer on an oblong dining table had begun to separate and peel in a few places. A few half-crusted dishes sat in a barely-rusted stainless steel sink. A few books and miscellaneous items of clothing lay strewn about an otherwise uncluttered living area. If it had been a modern trailer, Ellie would have thought it well-maintained. For a vintage seventies Airstream, the thing was immaculate.

“Hello?” she said. “Anybody home?” Silence.

She knocked on the door to what she guessed to be the trailer's bathroom. A moment later, she slowly pulled it open. Inside, a dirty skylight illuminated a cramped bathroom. Other than a single toothbrush standing in a holder, it looked disused.

She closed the door and made her way toward the trailer's rear. On one side sat a narrow bench with a few rumpled blankets. Ahead, a bedroom took up maybe a third of the trailer's total space. On an anemic queen-sized mattress lay a large sleeping bag and several lumpy blankets and comforters.

Something rustled, so subtly that at first Ellie thought she might have imagined it. She peered at the pile of covers. She reached over and pulled off one blanket, then a down comforter, then a sleeping bag. She peeled back several layers, bunching each atop the other at one corner of the bed. The final layer, a thick fleece sheet, draped over a large lump.

Ellie gently peeled it back and came face to face with a cowering child in dirt-stained shorts and T-shirt, curled into a fetal position and staring at Ellie with terrified blue eyes set into a face unevenly streaked with dirt and framed with matted blonde hair.

Ellie smiled and sat on the bed's edge. “Well, hello there,” she said.

The child stared at her, quivering.

“Hey, it's okay.” Ellie held out her hand. “Doctor Ellie Grant. What's your name?”

The child said nothing.

“Well, we'll have to call you something, won't we? Let's see. Shannon? No. Stacey. Not that either? I know...George.”

The child scowled. Through the dirt, the badly-matted hair, and the gender-neutral clothing, that much had shown at least. Ellie had never met a girl who didn’t react poorly to being mistaken for a boy.

“Well, young lady, I’m going to have to call you something. How about...Sally. After my parasaur.” At the girl’s frown, Ellie added, “Parasaurolophus. It’s a dinosaur.”

The girl’s scowl returned.

“You know your dinos?”

The girl nodded.

“Would you like to meet some?”

The girl cocked her head in an unmistakable ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

Ellie chuckled. “Oh, they’re not all extinct. In fact, we eat their eggs. You’re not hungry, are you?”

The girl straightened up and the scowl vanished.

“How long has it been since you’ve eaten anything besides a fish? Yes, we found the remains of one a few feet away. You didn’t eat that raw, did you?”

The girl let out a weak sigh. Ellie suspected as much. If Cindy had spotted any sign of a fire, she would have said so. And Ellie hadn’t seen any evidence that the trailer’s cooktop had been used in a while, either.

“If you come with me, we’ll feed you, give you a bath, and you’ll get to meet some living, breathing dinosaurs.” And be checked for lice, malnutrition, and whatever else, Ellie added to herself.

The girl recoiled slightly.

“Oh, no, it's okay. Let me guess, your parents told you never to talk to or go with strangers, right?”

The girl nodded curtly.

“That was smart of them. But we're not exactly strangers, are we?” Ellie flinched inwardly. That had to have been the most clichéd thing she could possibly have said. Let’s try this again, she thought.

“As it happens, I haven’t had my breakfast yet either. Neither has my baby girl. So if you want some, you’ll have to come with me.”

Ellie rose from the bed and turned around. She'd barely gone two steps past the bedroom door when the girl spoke.

“Don't leave me,” she said softly.

Ellie smiled to herself and turned around.

“Ah, I was hoping you could talk.”

Another frown.

Ellie leaned against the door frame. “It’s just that when people go through some…really bad stuff, they can often turn a little taciturn. That means they lose their ability to talk. It’s...a little more complicated, but it happens.”

The girl peered at Ellie for several moments. “Samantha,” she said quietly.

Ellie smiled. “I’m pleased to meet you, Samantha. Are you coming, then?”

Samantha reached between two pillows and pulled out a well-loved plush rabbit before scooting across the bed. Only when the girl slid over the edge did Ellie have a better view of her condition.

She'd seen photos of the people liberated from the Nazi concentration camps and those suffering from the famines in Africa. With clearly-visible bones and joints, slightly-sagging skin, and a yellow-ish nearly-waxy complexion, Samantha could almost have stepped right out of one of those. Her left leg buckled and Ellie lunged to catch her.

“I got you,” said Ellie. She slid an arm under the girl and half-carried her toward the door. “We're coming out!” To Samantha, she said, “The first dino you'll see is a Chilesaurus. She's a plant-eater and her name is Maihee. She'll probably want to sniff you the way a dog does. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Samantha.

Samantha nearly fell again descending from the trailer. Greg caught her.

“Oh, good Lord!” said Cindy.

Maihee stepped forward, nearly shoved her snout into Samantha's alarmed face, and began to sniff in a canine manner. The sniffing started at the girl's forehead and proceeded all the way down to her feet. She snorted and took a couple of steps back before turning half around and snorting again, shaking her head so that her ears flapped.

“You pass,” said Cindy.

Samantha giggled.

“Well, that's a good sign,” said Ellie.

“The usual?” Nate asked.

Ellie nodded. “Samantha,” she said, “we can get the rest of your things later. For now, we have to get you cleaned up, your clothes washed, and some food in your tummy. Okay?”

Samantha smiled weakly and nodded. Ellie took one of the girl's hands in her own, propped her spear onto her shoulder, and led the way back along the worn trail through the grass. Halfway back to Loop B, one of Samantha's legs buckled. Ellie barely caught her.

She handed her spear to Nate. “Take this,” she said without looking.

Samantha started to cry. Ellie scooped the girl up in both arms. “It's okay,” she said, “I got you.”

“He left me,” Samantha sobbed, “he left me!”

“But that's not what we're going to do, honey,” said Ellie.

No sooner had she cleared the pavement between the loops, than she bellowed for Megan.

“What?!” Megan called groggily from her tent.

“You have a patient!”

Ellie caught a half-suppressed curse, followed by the rustle of clothing and nylon, then a tent zipper. Megan stumbled out of her tent, tying her hair back in a barely-restrained ponytail as she came. “What is...” Her eyes went wide. “Oh...crap. Where did...?”

“In the trailer,” said Ellie.

Megan exhaled heavily. “Take her over to the mess hall and have Haakon feed her something. Get him to lighten up on the chilis for once. And give her some Gatorade _now_! I'll be there in a minute.”

Ellie nodded and Megan rushed off in the other direction. Nate followed Ellie to her camp and leaned her spear against its tree. “Thanks, Nate,” she said.

“You still want me to try to catch something?”

“Sure. But bring a buddy. You know the rules.”

Nate nodded and trotted off.

Alan looked up from where he stood beside their campsite's metal picnic table. On it, little Alicia lay wiggling her little limbs. His eyebrows rose. “Let me guess, the trailer?”

Ellie nodded. “Probably been living there a while. She's a bit...laconic. Megan's meeting me at the mess hall in a few minutes.”

Alan nodded. He looked back at Alicia. “I guess I have a few more daddy moments with you, then, squirt.” He leaned down and gave the baby a belly-blow, engendering a squeal. “But you're going to need feeding soon, aren't you? Yes, you are.”

Ellie smiled.

* * *

From a picnic table at the edge of the Mess Hall, Ellie watched a battle of wills between Samantha and Haakon. The girl wanted to inhale the acorn flour and pine nut muffin brought to her, and understandably so. Just as understandably, Haakon insisted on handing her very small pieces.

“Chew,” said Haakon, for what had to have been the dozenth time. “You don't want to hurl, do you? You know, I could put ghost pepper flakes in the next one and then you'll...”

Samantha gave him the raspberry.

“Haakon,” said Megan, “back off a little.”

“But...”

“Consider this parenthood training,” said Ellie.

Haakon took a deep breath and held it for a full minute. “Sorry,” he said to the girl. “Let's start over.”

Ellie sighed. The poor girl had probably been eating fish almost as long it had been since her parents had left. Judging by her condition, she'd probably only managed one every few days.

She exchanged a glance with Megan and winced. “She'll make it, right?” she asked.

Megan nodded. “She's the worst malnourishment case I've ever seen. It's too soon to tell what effect that's going to have later in life. But, yeah, she'll make it. Good thing we found her when we did.”

“Your prognosis, Doctor?”

Megan laughed. “Oh, now I'm the doctor?”

“Close enough.”

“The good news?” said Megan. “No lice. Not surprising in this climate.”

“And the bad news?”

“Four ticks, fat ones. Malnourished. Underhydrated. And hyponatremic. Enough vitamin deficiencies to choke an ankylosaur. We'll have to keep a close eye on her. You should talk to her. You're good with people.”

Ellie laughed. “Me? No, no, Alan's the people person.”

“Alan's good at the hard sell with adults. Telling people what they need to hear, in no uncertain terms.”

“You got all that in just a few days?”

Megan chuckled. “I have a way of being able to size people up. That's how my daddy put it. He wanted me to go into politics, maybe run for President. Thing is, I don't have much patience for people's bullshit. And that's how my mama put it.”

“What, you don't have to deal with that as a park Ranger?”

“Oh, sure. But I can usually scrape up enough patience to handle the occasional difficult visitor. The key is that I don't have to work with them and they're generally gone in day or two. My supervisor wanted to promote me, put me on the fast-track to administration.” Megan visibly shuddered. “Probably would have made it happen eventually, if it weren't for this Thanatocene of yours.”

* * *

Ellie scrubbed the last tenacious soil from another cattail rhizome and tossed it onto a slowly growing pile. On a nearby table, Alicia dozed in the shade. Beneath a trio of pop-ups erected on the gravel, Alan and several others labored shirtless over the laundry cauldrons.

A couple of feet away, Samantha unleashed a savage appetite on a small plate of potato, egg, dandelion, and kale scramble.

Megan stepped away and shook her head. “Chew, honey!” she said for at least the dozenth time.

Ellie picked up another cattail, cut the leaves off, and paused. “Well?” she asked Megan.

Megan exhaled heavily and shook her head again. “Not bad, all things considered. But you were right about the bath. And trying to get information out of her is like pulling hen's teeth.”

“She's scared, mostly.”

Megan nodded. “I get that.”

Ellie smiled. “Fortunately, she's not too scared for breakfast.”

Megan looked over her shoulder and winced. “She's going to hurl if she keeps that up.”

“Maybe. Some of the folks we found were a lot worse off than her, and only some of them threw up. And Samantha's not exactly starving.”

“Close enough. It'll be a few days before she can handle a full meal.” Megan turned her attention back to Ellie. “Remember when that wasn't kitchen talk?”

Ellie chuckled. “Barely. A lot has changed. I think a lot more is going to change before all is said and done.”

Alicia began to fuss. Ellie put down the unscrubbed rhizome. “Speaking of change,” she said.

Megan took over for Ellie. “I don't envy you,” she said.

Ellie spread a towel on the table and transferred the baby to it. “Half the time,” she said, “I don't envy me, either. But she's worth all the trouble.” She leaned down to Alicia's face. “Aren't you?” she teased.

“If you say so,” said Megan.

Ellie spared half her attention to regard Samantha. The girl sat wrapped in a large bath towel. Her mostly-damp hair clung to her head and the towel, some of it hanging in stringers down the side of her face. She held her face close to a copper-glazed stoneware plate--one of many they'd picked up in Moab and probably made by a local artist--making a passable imitation of a skip-loader.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

Samantha looked over, tried to say something around a mouth full of food, but instead gave Ellie a thumbs-up.

Ellie smiled. “That good, huh?”

Samantha nodded vigorously.

Ellie leaned over a little. “It's a good thing you're not allergic to eggs.”

Samantha visibly shoved her food into one cheek and said, “I love eggs!”

“I'm glad. But please don't talk with your mouth full.”

Dammit, she thought, I've turned into my mother.

The girl dutifully swallowed, and smiled.

“You think you're so cute, don't you?”

The smile turned into a cheeky grin.

Ellie chuckled and shook her head. She reached over and mussed Samantha's hair. “When you're done, young lady, do you think you're up for a little stroll?”

The girl blinked pensively, and nodded before returning her attention to her meal.

“Megan?” said Ellie, “Can you think of a reason why Sammie here can't go for a walk?”

“She collapsed on her way over here,” said Megan. “Are you sure that's a good idea?”

“You're the doctor, that's why I asked you.”

Megan rolled her eyes and came around the table. She peered intently at Samantha as she abandoned her fork, picked up her plate, and began to lick it.

Ellie met Megan's gaze. The other woman nodded slightly. Presently, Samantha put the plate down and belched.

“'Scuse me,” she said. She picked up a cloth napkin and wiped her mouth.

Ellie smiled. “Megan, would you be so kind as to keep an eye on Alicia for a bit?”

Megan nodded. “Sure. Just don't overdo it, okay?”

“No problem.”

Ellie took Samantha's hand and led her across the lot. The girl's borrowed flip-flops smacked rhythmically against her feet.

“It's not Sammie,” she said.

Ellie made an inquisitive noise.

“My name.”

“Is there something your parents called you?”

Samantha snorted. “Samantha.”

“Besides that?”

“Just Samantha.”

“Okay.”

After a few moments, Samantha said, “If you're a doctor, how come you asked Megan about doctory things?”

“Because she knows more about that than I do.”

Samantha stopped and looked sharply up at Ellie. “You said you're a doctor.”

“I am. Just not that kind of doctor.” At the girl's frown, Ellie added, “I'm a doctor of paleobotany.”

“What's that?”

“It's the study of prehistoric plants. The sorts of things the dinosaurs ate. Plants that are extinct now.”

“But they found some.”

“A few, sure. Dawn redwood, for example.”

“We saw one in an arbetum.”

“Arboretum?”

Samantha nodded.

“They're pretty trees, aren't they?”

Samantha nodded again. “So where's your dinosaur?”

“That's what I want to show you.”

Asphalt yielded to crushed, weed-strewn gravel, which gave way to an expanse of grass, some badly trampled, some tidily grazed. A barely-worn path led to the cabin housing those on graveyard watch.

Between the cabin and a line of trees lay what most might initially have mistaken for several large boulders. Boulders that slowly breathed. Ellie knew each of them at a glance.

Samantha gasped. “Are those...the dinosaurs?” she asked in a loud whisper.

“M-hm. You already saw a couple, remember?”

“The Chilesaurus and the Protoceratops and the Bicentenaria?”

“That's right. Now, those right there...” Ellie pointed.

One of the animals turned its head, the distinctive horns moving into view.

“Is that a Triceratops?” Samantha nearly squealed.

“She is.”

“She?”

“I know every one of these animals at a glance. Her name is Gertrude. We also have Styracosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Parasurolophus, Gallimimus, Allosaurus, Tenontosaurus, Hypsilophodon, Anchisaurus, Europasaurus, Scelidosaurus, and some others that never made it into the fossil record.”

“Allosaurus? That's like Tyrannosaurus, but smaller!”

“And a lot less cranky. Would you like to meet them?”

Samantha looked abruptly at Ellie, eyes wide. “Are they dangerous?”

Ellie smiled. “Not if you respect them. Just think of them as very big cows.”

“Okay.”

“You don't sound very sure about that.”

“Will they step on me?”

Ellie paused. “Well...it's happened. But horses step on people all the time. You like horses, don't you?”

Samantha nodded vigorously.

“The most important thing to remember, is that every animal can be dangerous. You just have to know how to manage the risks.”

Samantha peered at Ellie incredulously.

“No, really. What's the most harmless animal you can think of?”

The girl thought for a moment. “A cat.”

“Cats have claws, right? And if one scratches you, it can get infected if you don't clean it out, right?”

“I suppose. Chickens?”

“They have those sharp beaks. And the roosters have talons. Have you ever seen a rooster attack someone?”

Samantha opened her mouth, closed it, then said, “Oh, yeah. I forgot.”

Ellie led the way across the trampled grass to where one of the trikes reposed. Even laying down, it was big. The animal craned its head around and regarded her with big brown eyes, like the ones she'd nearly been lost in that day on Nublar. It blinked and grunted.

Samantha started.

“It's okay,” Ellie said. “She's just saying hello.”

She stepped over to the animal and began stroking her snout.

Samantha stood and stared.

Ellie beckoned. “Come on, you can pet her.”

Samantha stepped over and tentatively placed a hand on the animal just behind her nasal horn. It snorted. The girl yelped.

Ellie chuckled. “She likes you.”

“She snorted!”

“It's an 'I like you' snort.”

“How many kinds are there?”

“Of snorts? Several. The differences are subtle.”

“She's rough and a little fuzzy at the same time.”

“Yes, she is.” Ellie let Samantha stroke Gertrude's snout a few time before asking, “Would you like to meet Sally?”

The girl looked up with big green eyes. “That's your dinosaur?”

Ellie nodded.

“Sure.”

Ellie gave Gertrude one last pat on the bridge of her snout before leading Samantha a little further across the field to where Sally reposed near a tree. The animal raised her head and thumped the tip of her tail on the ground.

“Now,” said Ellie, “when you approach Sally, put your hand out in front like this.” She stretched her arm out straight, with her fingers dangling. “She'll want to sniff you. If she likes you, she'll lick you. If she doesn't, she'll snort irritably. If she thinks you're a threat, she'll kill you.”

Samantha drew in a ragged breath.

“Um...just follow my lead. I think you'll be fine. But you should probably leave her babies alone.”

“She has babies?”

“Well...they're not so baby anymore. In fact, they're bigger than you.”

“Oh.”

Ellie stepped up to an excited Sally. “Good morning, girl,” she gushed. “I brought a friend. This is Samantha.”

The girl held out a trembling hand. Sally snuffled at it. At length, she stuck out a long, pink tongue and raked Samantha up the face with it. The girl winced and fell over onto her backside.

Ellie helped her up. “Are you okay?”

“She pushed me down!”

“She didn't mean to. She's strong, that's all. Would you like to pet her?”

Ellie half-tugged Samantha the remaining couple of feet to Sally and began to stroke her snout. “Now,” said Ellie to the dinosaur, “no more pushing little girls off their feet, okay?”

Sally grunted.

Ellie looked Sally in the eye. “I mean it.”

Samantha stepped cautiously up to Sally and laid a hand on her snout. “She's a little fuzzy.”

“A little, sure.”

“She's beautiful!” Samantha gushed.

“She is, isn't she? She also breathes fire.”

Samantha gasped. “You mean that's true?”

“You've heard of that, I take it.”

“It was in a book. Like the bomdeer beetle. Brother said it was...a word I'm not s'posed to say.”

“You're both right, in a way. Most paleontologists thought the crest was an air chamber for, uh, bugling.”

“Like what elk do?”

“Exactly.”

“Oh. So the dumb creationists were right.”

“Well...I wouldn't put it quite like that.” She added, “It's complicated.”

Samantha scowled.

“It involves a lot of science and math.”

“I'm a straight-O student,” Samantha retorted.

“I believe you. Have they taught you genetics, algebra, trigonometry, and calculus?”

The girl shook her head.

“It's a lot of that stuff. The important part is that a lot of what we think we know about dinosaurs is probably wrong.”

“Like Allosauruses being less cranky than Tyrannosauruses?”

“Sure, like that.”

“Can I pet the Allosaurus?”

“Well...maybe. They're very picky about who they let touch them. Follow me.”

Ellie led her deeper into the field to where the two allosaurs had retreated.

Both animals stamped about, circling each other and vocalizing in ways Ellie hadn't heard before. Sundancer nuzzled Skywalker, and he nuzzled back.

“What are they doing?” Samantha asked.

“I'm not...” Ellie began.

Skywalker abruptly stomped around behind Sundancer and leaned over her back from behind not unlike what Ellie had seen in cattle. The dinosaur grunting changed. Ellie groaned softly and placed her palm over Samantha's eyes. She supposed the usual line about asking the parents to be out of the question. “I'll tell you when you're older.”

Definitely my mother, Ellie thought.

“They're Discovery-Channelling, aren't they?”

“Um...” It took Ellie a moment to realize what Samantha meant. She swallowed. “Yes. Yes, they are.”

“Oh.” Then, “I've been on farms, you know.”

Ellie removed her hand. “Sorry.”

“Are they gonna have babies?” Samantha asked.

“Well...” Ellie havered. Kids and their questions. “They lay eggs.”

“Are the babies fluffy like chicks?”

“Some are and some aren't. It really depends on the species.”

“Oh. Will I get to see?”

Ellie nodded. “Sure. Probably.”

A little bit later, both animals let out a sort of half-grunt, half-trumpeting sound. Ellie stifled a laugh.

Samantha giggled.

“No remarks from the peanut gallery,” Ellie ordered.

“What?”

Ellie groaned. “Come on, Samantha,” she said.

“Why? I wanna stay with the dinosaurs!”

“I don't blame you. But we can come back later. I have to talk to Alan.”

“Why?”

“I'll tell you later.”

Ellie took Samantha's hand and led her back to the picnic area for second breakfast.

“Alan?” she said.

Alan paused in his work and looked up from the laundry. Sweat glistened on his well-sculpted abs and bulging biceps. “What?”

“I think we might be here a while longer.”

He stood up straight. “Why?”

“It's the allosaurs.”

“What about them?”

“They mated.”

Alan half-stifled a laugh.

“It's not funny.”

“I know, I know. It's just that the kids are going to be...”

Ellie snickered. “That should be entertaining. Well, we'll just have to discuss it at Round Table.”

* * *

“What!?” said Lex. She turned a glare at Tim.

“What?” Tim said defensively.

“Your dinosaur boinked mine!” she accused.

“Like that's _my_ fault!”

“Alright, alright,” said Alan. “That's enough.” He shot Lex a look that Ellie hoped was understood to mean something like, 'You, young lady, have no room to talk about that.'

“We all know the drill,” said Ellie. “Tim, do you remember the incubation period for an Allosaurus?”

“Um,” said Tim pensively, “forty-five days. Give or take a couple.”

“So you're saying,” said Nate, “that if Sundancer starts nesting, we'll have to stay here a month and a half?”

“More like two months,” said Alan.

“That's not so bad, though, right?” said Megan. “I mean, from what you've all been saying since Moab, you could all use a really long rest.”

“Except that we're still right along a herd route between Denver and Salt Lake,” said Cindy.

“We don't know that,” said Gail.

“Don't we?”

“It's going to make it tough to reach someplace we can overwinter,” said Nate.

“That was always going to be up in the air, and we all know it,” said Haakon.

“That's not wrong,” said Alan. “We've been on the road long enough to know not to expect smooth travel from here to an overwinter. If there's one thing we can expect, it's the unexpected. We should plan on resting up here, and putting up some provisions.”

“And if a herd comes by?” said Megan.

“The same things that apply when we were only going to be here for a week or two still apply.”

“We're going to have to put someone up on that water tower with binoculars and a walkie-talkie twenty-four-seven. And you know that's going to be a pain in the ass,” said Beth.

“Language,” said Ellie.

Beth just hrmphed.

“We'll have to put that on rotation, too,” said Alan.

“What if we build a tower here?”

“With what? And how long would it take?”

“It would beat boredom. Because some of us don't have mates, you know.”

“Look,” said Alan, “there's not a lot we can do about it now, so we don't really have to make a decision today. Just know that it could be coming.”

“And let tomorrow worry about itself?”

“More or less.”

* * *

“Goddammit!” Haakon roared. “Get this thing out of my kitchen!”

A baseball-sized plastic-wrapped package sailed through the air, and bounced twice before rolling quickly to a stop on the warm asphalt. A trio of the usual suspects burst into laughter.

“It's not funny!”

“Yeah, it is!”

“Guys,” said Alan, “that's enough.”

Haakon glared at the main culprit. “Do you want me to put ghost pepper flakes in your lunch again?”

“He'll do it,” said Lex. “You know he will.”

“Aw, come on. It was a joke.”

“Not amused,” Haakon growled.

Alan exhaled heavily and ran a hand through his hair. “Rick, we've been over this a dozen times. If you want to eat Snowballs, Twinkies, or any of that other Hostess stuff, just shove it in your saddlebag and eat it yourself. Why do you have to keep overcomplicating it?”

“Because I'm bored?” Rick offered.

Lex laughed. “Whoo, you said the 'B' word! Bus-ted!”

“Now that you mention it,” said Alan.

“You're toast!” said Carol.

“We're about due for a new round of assignments,” Alan continued. “We could easily give you more kp or latrine duty. Or both. And you know it's just about laundry day again.”

“How about extra burpees?” Haakon suggested.

“Now, there's an idea.”

“Aw, come on...”

“Push it any more,” said Alan, “and you'll be doing all of it. All three of you. And you'll be on extra shifts shoveling dinosaur dung out of the pasture.”

Samantha leaned over to Ellie. “I thought it was funny,” she whispered.

Ellie leaned down. “Most of us disagree,” she replied quietly. “And it's not polite.”

* * *

Ellie leaned against one of the posts supporting the picnic shelter, and watched Lex. She sat in a camp chair, a charcoal pencil flying around a pad of drawing paper. Ellie watched in rapt attention as yet another scene of their life on the road unspooled onto the page.

This one showed a beaming Samantha gazing into the face of a young parasaur, one hand on the animal's nose, the other beneath her jaw.

“I can feel you watching me,” said Lex, neither looking up, nor pausing in her work.

“I like watching you work,” said Ellie. “It's relaxing. And it gives me something to do while Alicia nurses.”

Lex chuckled. “I hope I can still do this while mine does that.”

“Why not?”

“I suppose an easel and a few alligator clips would do it. Until the wind picks up.”

“You'll manage.” At length, Ellie added, “You're very good, you know.”

Lex chuckled. “So you've said.”

“Your talents would have been wasted on tech school.”

“You've said that before, too.” Lex continued working. “You're probably right. I guess the thing I liked about computers was the problem-solving. That, and they don't try to make me do things I don't want to do.”

Ellie laughed.

“What?” said Lex.

“Then you and I haven't known the same computers.”

“You just have to know how to talk to them, is all.”

“Like you and Sundancer?”

“Pretty much.” A few more strokes. “And no, I'm not going to try to talk her out of any of her eggs. She only laid them yesterday, and she's already grouchy about that. And Skywalker is already a bit over-protective. No, I don't think anyone but me and Tim are going to be able to get too close any time soon.”

“A month and a half of incubation, huh?”

“Yep.”

“And at least two weeks before the hatchlings are old enough to move?”

“That's what Tim said. And you and I both know how he is about dinosaur minutae.”

Ellie chuckled. “Good thing, too.”

“Good? It's annoying.”

“But his obsession with anything and everything dinosaur-related has saved our bacon more times than I care to count.”

Lex paused and craned her head around to meet Ellie's eye. She blinked twice before saying, “Yeah, there is that, I guess.”

Ellie let her gaze slide past Lex's toward where Samantha led Moonshine, a gunmetal-grey juvenile male parasaur with irregular black markings, around the gravel under Alan's watchful eye. “I suppose that's just as well. Aside from the rest, we could all use some more training. And our equipment needs more maintenance than we've had time to give it. Not to mention that we're short on ammo.”

“Too bad this place is on a herd route. I could stand to settle here.”

Alica finished feeding and Ellie moved her to her shoulder to burp. “And the winters?” she asked.

Lex grunted assent and went back to her drawing. “Still,” she said, “I'm used to this life.”

Ellie chuckled. “Between you, me, and the lamppost, so am I.”

Alicia burped a couple of times and started cooing. Ellie placed her on the table, picked up her pad and pencil, and resumed her diary.

She smiled to herself and the life all around her. Across the way, several people practiced their archery. Somewhere off in the camp came the sounds of a couple involved in an amorous encounter. The strains of harmonica music floated along on the breeze wafting from the river. In the middle of the asphalt, Dave rode his unicyle in a circle.

“Ellie?”

Ellie looked up at Carol. Brookie stood by her side as always.

“I'd like to take the children over to the school,” she said. “To raid the library.”

Ellie cocked an eyebrow.

“I...didn’t mean it like that.” Then, “Okay, maybe I did. We both know that building is going to wind up with water damage one of these years. Or the next fire that comes through...”

“And we had to abort that part of the Moab operation. Okay, but don’t go too crazy. Be back an hour before dusk.”

“You’re not going to tell me to be careful?”

Ellie laughed. “That goes without saying. Are you planning to bring back more books?”

“I thought went without saying.”

“If you keep this up, we're going to need a bigger library trailer before too much longer.”

“Oh, heaven forbid we should have too many books!” Carol said sarcastically.

Ellie laughed. “I'll just say that it’s a good thing a styracosaur can haul that.”

* * *

Firelight flickered off of dozens of the intimately familiar faces circled around the rare campfire for an even more rare total gathering. Lex stood and led what had become the anthem for her Knights of Thunder. By the second line, everyone had joined in.

An ancient legacy turned into a song of confidence and hope.  
Spreading endlessly.   
A view to the end of all horizons and beyond. 

We'll get to the core tonight.  
Our forces will prevail.  
For too long we've been doomed.  
Release our Badaboom!

Ellie couldn't remember just when the song had been introduced, let alone so widely adopted. But it did have a certain ring to it. When the song drew to a close, Tim slid another alder log into the flames while Haakon recited several stanzas of “Beowulf” in the original Anglo-Saxon, his Minnesotan accent lending itself well to the poem's cadence.

Then Kim presented a half-song rendition of “Jabberwocky,” followed by Carol's acapella metal arrangement of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Dave and Megan's “Dueling Banjos” on harmonica, and Sam with “The Imperial March” on the bagpipes. 

Alan plucked a few notes on guitar and began.

I was born up north of Great Slave, eighteen ninety-eight  
And I rode near all my life on a ranch near Devil's Gate  
I've seen this world around me bend and flip and change  
Hey, it feels like rain, that's a thunder cloud  
I've been called a coward, but I've seen two world wars  
I lost my son Virgil, my Korean reward  
And my Lucy died last summer, you ask me if I cried  
Hell, I'll show you tears, they're all over this ground  
Falling from these blue Alberta skies

Everyone joined in

We're gonna ride forever!  
Can't keep a horseman in a cage  
'Till the angels call, well it's only then  
I'm pulling in the reins

Ellie sat back and listened to her husband sing. The rest of the evening flowed into a series of songs and stories. In ones or pairs or families, people gradually trickled off to bed or watch.

* * *

Ellie dragged another breath into her already abused lungs.

“Come on, people,” Lex chided. “I'm six-months pregnant and I'm still leaving you all in the dust! Give me just three more!”

Ellie paused for two breaths before dropping back into the push-up position, then back up. One...two...three!

“Right,” Lex breathed. “Thirty-second rest, then we plank off!”

“If you give us any more burpees,” gasped Cindy, “they're gonna be barfees!”

“What's that? You say you want to do more?”

“Sir, no, sir!”

Lex grinned. “Assume the position!”

Ellie dropped into a plank along with everyone else.

“You know the drill,” said Lex. “Last one still up wins!”

Ellie didn't bother counting seconds. Instead, she focused on her breathing and imagined herself sitting atop Mt. Whitney the day she'd climbed it the summer after high school graduation. The thumps of other people hitting the ground became wind thuttering in her ears and the rolling of the distant thunderstorm that had been building over the Inyo Mtns. Her arms began to shake. Then her thighs. Her abs burned. Moments later, her elbow buckled and spilled her onto the ground.

She half-rolled into a sitting position, gasping for breath. Only Lex and Megan remained planking. Moments later, Megan lost it. Lex almost immediately took a knee.

“Okay, that'll do it,” said Lex. “Queue up for midday mess!”

“Sir, yes, sir!” they all said.

Ellie picked herself up off the ground.

“Sattler!” Lex barked.

Ellie took a breath. That girl was taking her job far too seriously. “Yes, Sir Alexis?” she asked.

Lex beamed. “Not bad.”

Ellie shook her head. “I'm getting too old for this s...tuff.”

“Bull. You're doing twice as well as people half your age.”

“I don't much feel like it right now. And you, young lady, are enjoying this way too much.”

“Hey, you guys said you wanted to be Knights of Thunder.”

“Sure. But some of us find the training to be...a bit excessive. You might want to re-think your approach.”

Lex's eyes narrowed. “Are you telling me how to run my Order?”

“No, no. Just...making a suggestion. But I think you'll have better results with less Marine boot camp, and more Gold's Gym.”

“Uh-huh.”

“All Knights are supposed to be able to keep up with you right?”

Lex nodded.

“Whatever happened to that list of aptitudes you were working on?”

Lex exhaled. “Yeah, well, things kept changing.”

Ellie shrugged. “They always do and always will. What is it you're trying to do with this?”

“Duh. Build an elite fighting force tasked with the defense of the living, the opposition of the wicked, and the elimination of the Dead.”

“Which takes more than wind-sprints, body-weight squats, and burpees.”

Lex deflated slightly. “Yeah, I guess. So how am I supposed to do this?”

“One step at a time, just like we've been doing everything. You're building something. Something that can last for generations. Like the baby in your belly, this one has a lot of potential and it's up to you to help it achieve that.”

Lex laughed. “That sounded just like all that motivational stuff they used to tell us in school.”

Ellie nodded. “You're not wrong. It's still true and you'll still have to learn it on the job. But for now, I don't know about you, but I'm famished!”

Lex nodded and the two of them meandered over to the mess hall.

“What's for lunch?” Beth asked.

“It's Taco Tuesday!” Haakon declared.

“But it's Friday,” said Greg.

“Then it's Fajitas Friday!”

“What if it's Thursday?” Megan asked.

“Thor-tilla Thursday!”

“Haakon,” said Cindy, “it's always one of those with you.”

“Grand, ya?”

“Just don't put so much halpeenos in mine!” Samantha demanded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chilesaurus wasn't discovered until 2004. But it was too cool to omit. For a few artists' renditions of the animal:
> 
> https://www.newdinosaurs.com/chilesaurus/
> 
> http://cdn.sci-news.com/images/enlarge/image_2739_1e-Chilesaurus-diegosuarezi.jpg
> 
> The badaboom song:
> 
> https://vancanto.bandcamp.com/track/badaboom-2


	11. Between a Rock and a Herd Place

Ellie pointed to a pair of ten-foot-high steel posts set a good six feet apart and spanned by a pair of steel angle-iron strips punctuated by rusted-out tabs, each with a quarter-inch hole. From them hung small shreds of wood.

“Well,” she said, “at least someone had the decency to take the sign down when the business folded. I hate it when people do that. I can't count the number of times I've been out on some field trip, looking for a decent lunch, spot a burger place, and I pull up to find it's long-closed and no one bothered to take down the sign!”

“Maybe someone shot it out.”

Ellie looked down on Samantha astride Moonshine. “Why would someone do that?”

“Because this is the kind of town where kids don't have much to do. Except fish, fight, and...a word I'm not s'posed to say.”

“Well, whatever this place was, it closed a long time ago.”

Ellie scanned the grounds as they continued to thump along the road. Less than a hundred yards past a simple six-foot chain-link fence stood a large cinder-block building. What looked like tan and red paint had been blasted off by decades of wind-blown dust and grit. Corrugated metal siding, streaked with rust, jutted up to meet a nearly-flat roof. Near the ground, several John Deere green rolling sheet-metal doors punctuated the walls. The weed-grown crushed gravel looked like it hadn't been driven on in at least a decade.

On the south side of the building, one of the doors, wood panel from the look of it, lacked every panel. Two other doors, these mounted on outward-swinging hinges, hung wide open as though the ruin of the building itself were Dead.

Further back, and close to the water tower's access road sat a single-story cinder-block building painted an approximation of Forest Service green. On one wall, someone had spray-painted in white a single word in that ubiquitous Gangster Graffiti font that Ellie couldn't quite make out. Sheets of weathered plywood covered a single loading-bay door that serviced a concrete platform beneath an overhang. Plywood likewise covered an employee access door, a broad window, and two other high windows on the building's south side. Vacant platforms on the roof and the south wall looked like they'd once supported HVAC units.

They thumped past a small wooden booth, also painted now-weathered Forest Service green, that had probably been some sort of security check-point. Past that, and a few score yards back, sat another cinder-block building with the same green doors.

The only marks in the dust were bicycle tires, horse and mule hooves, and dino tracks.

They thumped up the low rise to the base of the town's water tower. A pair of mountain bikes leaned against one of the pylons. Ellie cringed inwardly at the sheer quantity of beer bottles and used condoms the first watch had found up on the catwalk surrounding the tank. A pile of other refuse lay piled up against an adjacent fence.

“Ahoy, the watch!” she called.

“Ahoy, the relief!” Steve called back, his voice half-muffled.

Moments later, a bundle descended and thumped onto the ground. Ellie unclipped the carabiner that held Steve's and Gail's gear to the end of a stout rock-climbing rope, and clipped her own day's provisions on in its place. She gave a double tug and walked over to the ladder while Steve hauled her load.

She gestured toward it. “You sure you're up to this?” she asked.

Samantha peered at it, craned her neck up, and exhaled. Wordlessly, she walked over to the ladder and began to climb. Ellie waited half a minute before following.

“Don't get too far ahead, young lady,” Ellie said.

“Okay. I won't.” Samantha proceeded at the same pace.

Well, Ellie thought, if she slips, there's the cage and me.

At length, she climbed onto the platform, thankful for the fitness built up by the last few years of rough living.

“Anything new to report?” she asked.

“Nope,” said Gail. “Couple of pronghorn ambled by about an hour ago. Live ones. Went that way.” She pointed southwestward. “Probably not worth tracking, unfortunately. I get a little tired of fish and eggs.”

Ellie shrugged. “Could be worse.”

“Don't say it.”

“We could be living off Twinkies.”

“I told you not to say it!”

Ellie laughed. “If you two hurry, you might make it in time for what remains of breakfast.”

“Oh, joy.”

Steve sidled past Ellie and vanished down the ladder. Gail leaned over and muttered in Ellie's ear, “You might want to talk to the girl about her manners.”

“Oh?” 

“She asked if Steve and I were 'Discovery-Channeling.'”

Ellie pressed a couple of fingers against her forehead and groaned.

“We looked at her like she'd grown a third eye,” Gail added.

Ellie nodded. “Thanks for telling me. I'll take it from here. You two go get some food and some sleep.”

Gail put a foot down the ladder, then said over her shoulder, “And if we are, you know?”

Ellie put up a hand. “Not my business. You know that.”

Gail nodded and vanished down the ladder.

Ellie sighed through her nose. She looked down and watched the pair pedal away. Dust puffed up from their tires and wafted away in the slight morning breeze, and vanished altogether as they pulled onto the badly-cracked asphalt.

She wondered how things might look after a hundred years. Surely the only things remaining would be the concrete walls, metal crumbled to rust, the roads buried under new loess. And in a thousand years? Would future archaeologists even think to excavate here, in a place that was once, and would be again, just another bend in the river?

She turned to Samantha and gestured to one of the folding camp chairs lashed to the rail. “While we make ourselves comfortable, you and I need to have a little chat.”

* * *

Ellie stood in the early afternoon shadow of the tank, her binoculars trained on the railroad that stretched away toward the east. Around the toe of a set of low bumps, a train lumbered into view. The locomotive appeared an older-model diesel. But the sheer amount of sheet-steel welded to it made it look downright dinosaurian, right down to the oversized cow-catcher.

It pulled five cars and a red caboose, all similarly armored. A machine-gun emplacement sat atop the caboose.

“Ellie to Alan, ateb, over.”

After what felt like five minutes, but was probably only one, Alan replied. “Parhau, over.”

“Mae gen i cantroed nesad gyflym. Saith gylchranau. Over.” I have a centipede inbound at a brisk walk. Seven segments.

“Cydnabod. Cynnal safle, over.” Roger that. Maintain position, over.

“Ten-four, over.”

“What's all that mean?” Samantha asked.

“No uncoded messages on an open frequency,” said Ellie.

“That sounds like Starfleet Regulation four point three point Section bite me.” She rolled her eyes for emphasis.

Ellie raised her brow. “Excuse me?”

“My brother liked _Star Trek_.”

“Be that as it may, this isn't Star Trek. And I told you why we use codes.”

Samantha exhaled. “In case someone might be listening in.”

Ellie nodded. She looked back toward the tracks. “I think they're slowing down.”

Far below and a quarter mile away, the train lumbered over Browns Wash, crawled over the next half-mile of track, and rolled to a halt at 800 E St.

“What are they doing?” Samantha asked.

“Don't know yet. Ellie to Alan, ateb.”

Moments later, Alan answered, “Parhau, over.”

“Cantroed wedi stopio at wyth-dai-ought. Gweridiad amhenodol, over.” Centipede has stopped at eight-two-ought. Disposition indeterminate, over.”

“Understood. The Black Knight wyrth y bont, over.” The Black Knight at the bridge.

“Ten-four, over.”

Samantha said, “Do we hafta talk like that?”

“If we don't want the bad guys to know what we're saying.”

“How do we know they're bad?”

“We don't. Not yet. But it's safe to assume the worst.”

“Why? Daddy says to be the change you wanna see.”

“Not a bad idea. But these days, that'll get you killed. Hold on.” Ellie raised the binoculars again.

“Ellie to Alan, cantroed cropian, over.” Centipede is crawling.

“Ten-four, over.”

Ellie clenched her jaw. She knew the numbers. The barely five hundred feet between the railroad alignment and the edge of the camp was hardly much of a buffer, especially if someone knew what to look for. Anyone spotting the grazed and otherwise disturbed golf-course-turned-parkland would probably assume a herd of pronghorn, or possibly horses and cattle. Never mind that hardly anyone would try to drive cattle through these parts.

Whether the dinos could be kept hidden far enough back was another story. All the trailers in the parking area would hopefully be assumed to have been abandoned by someone before. And they'd had the day's fires going long enough that the smoke shouldn't be too noticeable. A lot depended on who was watching, how observant they were, and whether or not they knew what to look for.

“Will they stop at the park?” Samantha asked.

Ellie shook her head. “I doubt it. Not if they plan to unload anything, anyway. No, I think they'll pull up by the train station. Then they'll be Stacey's problem.”

A moment later, Samantha said, “Um...Ellie? Is that what I think it is?”

Ellie turned around and followed the line of Samantha's hand pointing eastward. She looked through the binoculars and cursed. She leaned back over the railing.

“Um!” said Samantha. “You said a bad word!”

“I'll do the punishment burpees later.” Ellie toggled the walkie. “Ellie to Alan. Inbound herd, one mile out. I say again, herd one mile. Over.”

“Acknowledged. Get your butt out of there. Over.”

“Ten-four. Over and out.” She helped Samantha shove their gear into their packs.

* * *

San Rafael Reef rose ahead, a mass of jagged, tilted buff slabs like a wall of ankylosaur armor stretching north and south further than Ellie could see. The highway climbed steadily over a mile and disappeared through a cleft between two of the immense slabs that towered a thousand feet above the muddy little San Rafael River.

Ellie swallowed the lump rising in her throat. She used to love road trips. The mystery of what waited around the next bend, or over the next rise had excited her as a girl. Now, whatever waited there would probably try to eat her, and it wouldn't wait for her to die first.

The convoy ground along the west-bound freeway, the flat expanse of creosote and sage brush flanking the dull, sorry river dropping away behind them as their shadows shortened.

Ellie exhaled heavily. “I hate blind corners,” she said. She raised her binoculars and studied the route.

The sharp crack of gunfire bounced off the rocks. Alan threw up his fist in the _HALT_ gesture. He and Ellie exchanged glances behind their sunglasses.

Where the road spilled out of the gap, several dark shapes appeared.

“We've got company,” she said. “I make four...no, seven individual humans. Moving too fast for foot. No engine noise yet.”

“Bicycle?” said Alan.

“Probably. Stand by.” Ellie waited a couple of minutes. The figures in her field of view wiggled a little as she moved, and wobbled from side to side as they rode. “They're riding hard. I wonder...oh, crap.”

“Don't tell me,” said Alan.

“It's another herd, isn't it?” said Tim.

Ellie watched several black specks shambled into the open. “Alan, turn us around. That gravel access up there should do it.” She pointed a few dozen yards ahead where a gravel drive joined the two sections of highway, one formerly for use by emergency vehicles or highway crews.

Alan groaned and toggled his walkie. “Alan to Megan, over.”

“Megan here, over.”

“We've got another herd. Take forty-three, over.”

“Roger that. See you back here, over.”

Ellie turned Sally onto the median and raised her binoculars again.

“Numbers?” Alan asked.

“Stand by...” Ellie crunched the math in her head. “The leaders should reach this position about the time the last of our wagons leave the Highway Twenty-Four offramp. If we can manage to break visual contact...”

“Fall back,” said Alan, “to just this side of the river's flood-plain. Standard pursuit plan.”

Tim and Lex thumped a dozen yards past Ellie, bows at the ready, pila waiting.

“Beth,” Alan continued, “do you think that fire plan will work?”

“It should,” said Beth. “Well, it has to, I mean. The wind's blowing toward them and we need to break our scent. Between burning brush and whatever flesh we can set on fire, that ought to do it.”

“Make it so.”

A quarter mile back, Ellie watched Beth make her preparations. The vegetation thinned out in the median where the twin roadbeds rose slightly from the expanse of brush filling the river's flood-plain. Beth set a pair of five-gallon propane tanks, their valves slightly cracked, just off the shoulder of each portion of road, and a five-gallon gas can in the middle of each set of lanes. She left a messy trail of gas along the asphalt back a hundred yards, splashing some intermittently onto the brush on either side.

Alicia began to fuss. “It's okay,” Ellie said quietly over her shoulder, “just cool it for now.” Alicia predictably continued fussing.

A minute later, the knot of cyclists rounded the bend, most of their attention behind them. One of them looked up, face half-hidden behind mirrored cycling shades. Ellie saw the guy's mouth form an O. He jammed on his brakes, over-balanced, and fell over, rolling once. One of his companions hit him and flew over the handlebars. The others swerved and screeched to a halt in a brief squeal of brakes and tires, followed by a flurry of profanity.

“Well,” called Tim, “don't just lay there, you idiots!”

“It's a dinosaur!” one of them blurted.

“They're going to eat us!”

“But it's a freaking dinosaur!”

“No, it's five dinosaurs!”

“Oh, crap!”

“Shut up!” Ellie barked.

The cyclists stared.

After a few moments, one of them stammered, “They're...coming!”

“The Dead, right?” said Lex.

He looked at her. “How did you...?”

“We're the Knights of Thunder,” she said, her voice practically dripping with pride.

The guy worked his mouth, apparently trying to make sense of it.

“We've been doing this a while,” said Alan.

“Come with us if you want to live,” said Tim.

“Pick yourselves up,” said Ellie, “put those guns down, and get out of our way.”

“What my wife means,” said Alan, “is that we have a procedure. And if you want to stay alive, you'll join up with our caravan. You'll do exactly what you're told when you're told, or you can take your chances with the other herd flowing this way from Denver.”

“You can't kill 'em!” one of the cyclists protested.

“We can,” sad Lex, “and we will.”

“What? How?”

“Seriously?” said Tim.

“Shoot them in the head,” said Beth.

“I told you!” another of the cyclists said, smacking her comrade upside the head, knocking his helmet askew.

“But we tried that!” the guy protested to her.

“What are you using?” Ellie asked.

“Twenty-two?”

Tim laughed. “Twenty-two!”

“It's what we have,” the cycletrix said.

“With a twenty-two,” said Alan, “you have to be very good, or very lucky.”

“Or both,” said Beth.

“Why?” asked another cyclist.

“Because,” said Lex, “a standard round that size isn't big enough to do enough damage to what's left of their brains. Especially after penetrating the skull.”

“And some animals,” said Beth, “have pretty thick skulls.”

“Don't say it,” said Tim.

“Like you?”

“Ha, ha.”

“Okay, guys,” said Ellie, “let's focus. And you,” she said to the cyclists, “unless you have something bigger than a twenty-two, you'll have to get out of here. Because when we break contact, we'll do it quickly. We can't have you in our way, and we don't want to leave you to be eaten.”

The cyclists looked at each other, then picked themselves up and began to pedal away.

“Just take the Highway Twenty-Four offramp,” said Alan, “tell them Alan sent you, and we'll sort out the rest later.”

“She's cute,” said Tim.

Presently, the dead shambled into view.

“Slay now,” said Ellie, “flirt later.”

A few minutes later, the first of the dead began to moan. It spread to the next, and the next, and the next.

“They've seen us,” said Beth.

Lex cursed.

“Young lady,” said Ellie.

“Yeah, yeah, I'll do the punishment burpees later.”

“Beth,” said Alan, “I think now would be a good time. Fall back immediately. Ellie, try to keep Sally from letting loose too soon this time.”

Ellie rolled her eyes behind her shades. “I'll see what I can do.” She reined Sally about and began to thump off eastward. She craned her head around as Beth struck a flint-and-steel to a small pool of gas on the asphalt.

A moment later, Beth rocked to her feet and took three bounding steps onto her own gallie. The others took off. The fire raced in the other direction, following a trail along the road, and branching out into the verge. Several of the shrubs caught fire, the creosote brush going up in hot, smoky flame.

A few more seconds later, the gas can and both propane canisters went up in a _WHOOSH-BOOM!_ The blast set everything within a twenty-foot radius ablaze and dismembered three of the Dead.

Sally grunted and skipped a half-step. “Steady, girl,” said Ellie.

Ahead, the last of the column crested the rise, the newcomers on their heels. Alan came up on the left. He nodded and Ellie spurred Sally into a run. Sally shifted her weight backward, coming up on her hind legs, Ellie easily adjusting to the change in angle and gait. The others rushed past her up the grade between a cut through the rock.

A few minutes later, they slowed to a halt just over the crest and well past sight and sound of the Dead. Sally dropped back to all fours. Ahead, most of the convoy had passed out of sight around a bend in the offramp. Westward, the smoke plume rose into view.

“Let's go before they pick us up again,” said Beth. “It's going to be a late night as it is.”

They took the exit to Hwy. 24, Ellie bringing up the rear. The grade sloped almost imperceptibly downward. Minutes later, she passed a sign.

GOBLIN VALLEY 37  
HANKSVILLE 42  
CAPITOL REEF 86  
LAKE POWELL 112

_Oh, joy_, she thought. She watched the convoy curve left along Hwy. 24 on its way south across a bare landscape of thinning scrub and slightly ruddy dirt. A mile to the west, San Rafael Reef jutted up in a jagged wall between her people and the approaching Dead.

More than a mile behind, a trickle of smoke still rose from the unseen freeway. She padded along behind the convoy, hanging back fifty feet or so with Tim and Lex. One by one, the dinos and others strung out along the road disappeared around the slight bend passing over an equally slight rise.

Ellie paused at that point. Even through her binoculars, only the empty road met her sight. She sighed in relief and nudged Sally back into motion.

She caught up a quarter mile later in the middle of a discussion between Alan and the newcomers.

“It depends on what we find there,” said Alan. “But it'll be up to you.”

“They're taking laps, you know,” said one of the guys.

“The herds?” said Tim.

“If that's what you call them,” said one of the gals. “But, yeah, they just wander in circles.”

“Or oscillations,” said Lex.

“You mean like a wave?” the gal said.

“Yup. Back and forth, back and forth.”

“Truth is,” Alan continued, “we don't know a lot about their migration patterns, other than that they do it. And not just spreading out and wandering from one spot to another.”

“Mainly,” added Tim, “because no one wants to get close enough.”

Four of the newcomers visibly shuddered. “Who would?” one gal demanded.

The hours stretched on, drawing the day's shadows with it. Only when the road slipped into road-cut shade in its slide back into the San Rafael River floodplain miles later, more of the red-ribboned San Rafael Reef jutting up in the near distance, did Ellie begin to wonder about camping. _Ah, the life of a Knight of Thunder_, she thought.


	12. Thundersnow

Very little marked the edge of Baker, save for the usual green sign with its white lettering declaring the town's population of sixty-eight and elevation of five thousand three hundred fifteen, and an admonition to “Drive Safely.”

To the left, beyond the first of a collection of shabby-looking houses and even shabbier-looking trailers, rose the mountains of the Snake Range, half shrouded in storm clouds. To the right, more of the basin they had just traversed, and beyond that, the drunkenly-tilted rocks of the Confusion Range.

Beside, and just beyond, the City Limit sign, several lengths of three-quarter-inch rebar jutted out of the earth. On each, a human head sat impaled like antenna balls. A few had been reduced to skulls, the bone pitted and scored by beak and tooth. To others, dessicated shreds of flesh, skin, and hair still clung. A couple looked only weeks old, and one had an eyeball still intact.

“Gee,” said Megan sarcastically, “that's not foreboding at all.”

“Keep your eyes peeled, everyone,” Alan called.

“You mean more than usual?”

Alan just grunted.

Megan had a point. Life on the road meant a constant state of suspicious alert. Still, anyone who could hide in flat, open sagebrush country had Ellie's respect.

A couple of blocks, if one could call them that, later, a large gravel area spread out on the right. In the center of it stood a pair of gasoline pumps.

“Geez,” said Tim. “This place is so small, they didn't even put a roof on the gas station.”

“Maybe,” said Gail, “there are survivors here.”

“Perhaps,” said Alan. “Perhaps not. Real Estate Rule, remember?”

“Location, location, location?”

“Right.”

“So with this place being so close to the Salt Lake hordes...?”

“Pretty much.”

“But isn't Highway Fifty America's Loneliest Road?”

“It was,” said Megan. “But that was after Interstate Eighty replaced U.S. Fifty as the main east-west route across Nevada, and before the Dead started shambling around like they do.” She paused. “Oh, gods, I'm sounding like one of you guys.”

Tim laughed.

“What?”

“Oh,” said Lex, “that's not so bad, is it?”

“I guess not.”

“The point,” said Alan, “is that...”

“We are alive when they start to eat us?” said Haakon.

“Ha, ha,” said Lex.

Tim pointed to several score human bones scattered across the gravel. To some of it still clung a little cartilage, some hair, and shreds of clothing. Probably the work of scavengers fighting over a meal.

“Looks like business as usual,” he said.

Only a line of stunted cottonwoods marked Lehman Creek bounding the southern side of what passed for downtown. It consisted of a half-dozen buildings, all in what Ellie might have described as Rural Rustic style, the type seen all over the rural West and either original buildings from some time in the mid-nineteenth century, or copied from them.

On the right, a small building with green particle siding and a red sheet-metal roof bore a sign identifying it as “Happyburg Trad'n Post.”

Across the street, a peeling sign identified that building as Kerouac's Restaurant and Bakery and the Stargazer Inn.

Beyond that, a blue-roofed T&D's Restaurant and Grocery advertized ice, soda, beer, liquor, and wine. Between its parking lot and the street, several railroad-tie planter boxes grew a collection of seasonal weeds, now parched. A few bleached bones and a cow skull jutted out in random spots.

Beyond that, green and brown signs with left-pointing arrows directed interested parties to the Senior Citizen Center, Baker School, Great Basin National Park, Lehman Caves, and Wheeler Peak.

Just past that, the Post Office sat to the right. One vehicle occupied its parking lot, a beige Toyota Corona with flat tires.

Alan brought the convoy to a grinding halt at the Lehman Caves Rd. junction.

Ellie heard Megan sigh heavily. “I really hoped I'd see...I don't know, something. Some sign someone still lived.”

“We've only just arrived,” said Ellie. “If this is anything like most places, the survivors are in hiding. And as I recall, you did much the same thing when we pulled into Arches.”

Megan shrugged. “Well...sort of.”

“She has a point, though,” said Ellie. “This place is clean. Maybe a little too clean.”

“So,” said Lex, “where to?”

Ellie watched Megan scan around. “I'd like to go to the Visitor Center first. It's just around that curve in the road. Past the Whispering Elms Motel and RV Park.”

“Whispering Elms?” said Tim. “Gee, that doesn't sound foreboding at all.”

They started moving again. Whispering Elms was a ranch-style building painted a rather vivid salmon-red. Several lengths of split logs mounted to the long side spelled out “LODGE.” On a long plank suspended from a pair of logs perpendicular to the road was carved in large, friendly letters, “Whispering Elms Campground.”

“So which is it,” said Tim, “an RV park, a motel, a campground, or a lodge?”

“All of the above?” said Megan.

“Can't be.”

“The Dead can't walk around either,” she retorted. “Yet they do.”

Minutes later, they pulled left into the Great Basin National Park Visitor Center drive. On the far side of the lot sat a single white pickup bearing the brown arrowhead of the National Park Service.

The building itself was in the regional park style. Stone pillars supported an open roof over a small picnic area between the main Visitor Center building and a second, slightly larger building that Megan said was administrative office space.

On both sides of a slightly pinkish-cast walk spread small gardens showcasing, according to small signs that poked out of the late-season growth, Great Basin native plants. Russet Penstemon fruits stood half-open, a few seeds still visible inside the dry bivalved capsules. Shorter composites of some sort still held onto a few fluffy seeds. Several Opuntia specimens held up their ruddy prickly pear fruits. Papery Eriogonum heads blazed burnt orange above greyish leaves.

Ellie waited on the verge while Tim and Lex thumped around the north side of the building and the rest of the caravan filed into parking spaces. One by one, people dismounted or climbed out of wagons to stretch road-weary muscles and joints.

Ellie felt her own legs and back crick as she dismounted, portending her impending middle age.

Megan parked her bike and walked up to the front door. “It's locked!” she called over her shoulder. “They must have closed it when everything hit the fan. Too bad, because they have a great three-dee map of the Basin that could be very useful.”

“Don't you have keys?”

Megan shrugged. “I could try it. And I guess if there were any Dead in there, they'd be trying to get me by now.” She rummaged in her trailer, and produced a clutch of keys. She sorted past a few that looked like they went to various Park Service vehicles and began trying what looked like door keys. The last one slid easily into the lock. She jiggled it in every possible direction, with no further results.

She muttered something under her breath and leaned up to the glass and put her hands around her face. After a few moments, she pulled away. “Nothing,” she said.

She walked over to the other building and repeated it. She exhaled heavily. They walked back toward the parking lot. “Now what?”

“I was hoping you could tell us,” Ellie said.

“There's Ranger housing across the highway,” Megan suggested. “Barring that, the Lehman Caves Visitor Center.”

Tim and Lex thumped back up the parking lot from the west side of the building. “All clear,” said Lex.

“There's another Park vehicle,” Tim added. “Jeep Cherokee. Tires are intact.”

Megan looked up. “You mean they're not flat?”

Tim shook his head. “Uh-uh.”

A smile flickered across Megan's face. “That's another good sign, isn't it? Almost no bodies. No abandoned vehicles along the road. Shops looked vacant, but like you said, it's always hard to tell from the street when there's no power, right?”

“If you were here when the Dead came, where would you go?”

Megan pointed west without hesitation. “Up there.”

“Alan,” said Ellie, “I'd like to take Megan up to Lehman.”

Alan nodded. “Tim, Alexis, and Samantha, go with them. Carol, you, Greg, and Cindy better check out Whispering Elms. It looks like our best bet for an overwinter. Beth, Dave, and...Steve and Gail, I'd like you to have a look at the Ranger housing just in case. In the meantime, we'll sit tight.”

“Are you sure Alexis shouldn't stay here?” Megan said. “I mean, she's...”

“About to burst?” Tim finished.

Alexis gave him a raspberry. “I'm pregnant, Brother, not invalid. Besides, you might need us.”

Ellie nodded. “Okay, but if you start having contractions, I want you to get your butt, and the rest of you, back here. You got that?”

“So noted.” Which, Ellie figured, meant she could expect further argument on the subject.

A minute later, the five of them thumped and cycled cross-country toward Lehman Caves Rd. They continued wordlessly for at least a mile of nearly-flat sagebrush, past the occasional gravel drive down which they caught glimpses of a house or a trailer, sometimes both, and even a few glints of chrome bumper on usually early-model pickups.

At length, the road curved and began to rise. Junipers and piñon pines appeared, drought-stunted at first, then progressively larger with increasing elevation. A few more gravel drives led off the road to disappear through the junipers.

A brief widening of the road heralded the junction of Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive. Just beyond that, the road crossed Lehman Creek, barely a crease in the slope where white rounded limestone rocks the size of melons showed through the dry vegetation. Ahead, Wheeler Peak vanished into darkening clouds.

Less than half a mile later, the road passed another drive toward what Megan said was more Ranger housing, then ended at a circular drive serving the Lehman Caves Visitor Center.

Tim thumped left, ignoring the large “ONE WAY” sign.

Ellie rolled her eyes. _Kids_, she thought.

The drive climbed slightly, past a narrow planting strip, a crescent of parking, then another much wider planting strip. A scattering of weeds and tufts of stunted grass, some native and some not, grew in cracks between the pavement and concrete walks. Crescent-shaped planted terraces between the parking tiers, once planted like the small display gardens at the Visitor Center down below, held little but rabbitbrush, sagebrush, and a dozen or so specimens of mountain mahogany, Rocky Mountain maple, and skunkbush. Here and there, dried seed pods of Penstemon palmerii, tightly-curled spent lupine pods above withered silvery leaves, half-stripped biscuitroot umbels, and papery balsamroot heads jutted up like undying spires.

A waist-high wall of mortared field-stone, probably locally-quarried limestone, schist, and sandstone, separated a sidewalk from what had been a lawn, now a shaggy expanse of knee-high straw and tall weeds. At the northern end of the building, two enormous white poplars, leaves just yellowing with the onset of autumn, still managed to hold on in the absence of the supplemental irrigation that had once kept the grass alive in summer.

The Lehman Caves Visitor Center stood to the west, a single-story ranch-style structure painted a grey-brown that blended with the stormy clouds shrouding Wheeler Pk. At each end, a dozen wood-framed windows trimmed in tawny dijon let light into a cafe to the south and classroom space to the north. To the right of center, a bare flag pole speared the sky. In a slight recess to the left a pair of double plate-glass doors and three floor-to-ceiling windows reflected the cloudy eastern sky. To the left of that, a pair of water fountains hung on the wall. Two large metal boxes stood on posts mounted to the fieldstone edging the patio.

A wide staircase bisected with a rusted railing climbed from the parking level up two flights to a small patio at the center of the building. A pair of long wooden benches sat bolted to the exterior wall beneath a broad overhang and a large sign declaring “Lehman Caves Visitor Center” in large, friendly letters beside the National Park Service arrowhead.

Beyond that on the far right stood a small log cabin with a single four-pane window and no visible door. Piñon pine and juniper clothed the slope behind the buildings.

Ellie brought Sally to a halt in the middle of the upper parking lot. Her mind's eye conjured up images of another time. Nearly every space occupied by the products of the American Dream: station wagons filled with families on their summer road trips; a few motorcycles ridden up by twenty-somethings between jobs or terms in college or just trying to find themselves; RV's lumbering up from the basin floor carrying retirees and their small dogs; sport utility vehicles. Human voices of laughter like birdsong filling the air. All long gone. Of them, only vacant asphalt, the occasional faded shreds of snack food wrappers, and a couple of barely-recognizable cigarette butts remained.

“It's just like I remember!” Samantha blurted.

“Yeah,” said Megan, “me, too. Except that it's too quiet.”

Ellie dismounted right in the middle of what would otherwise have been the flow of traffic and followed Megan up to the patio, the others on her heels. Megan tried the door.

“Dammit,” she said. “I was really hoping.”

“Unless they knew we were coming,” said Tim.

“And what, locked the doors?”

“We're riding dinosaurs,” said Lex. She pointed at the boxes. “They could see us coming through those, couldn't they?”

Megan nodded. “Those are usually coin-operated. I'm surprised they still work.”

“Maybe,” said Ellie, “someone found a workaround. Megan, what would you say the magnification is on these?”

“A hundred? Maybe two?”

Ellie stepped over and peered through one of the devices. The landscape to the east leaped closer in her vision. She slowly panned it back and forth. “Well,” she said pensively, “anyone looking through this would have spotted us at the lower Vistor Center. They'd have seen us coming up the road, too. That's plenty of time to lock up and make themselves scarce.”

“Assuming,” said Megan, “that anyone's using the building.” She stepped over to the doors and cupped her hands around her eyes.

“Anything?” Lex asked.

At length, Megan said. “Nothing moving. Even with the skylights, it's a bit dark to see much.”

“You could knock,” said Tim.

“If they saw us coming,” said Ellie, “then they probably also know we're here. And they probably don't want to be found.”

“But we're nice!” Lex retorted.

“They don't know that.”

“Like you said, we're dinosaur jockeys,” said Samantha.

Megan pounded her fist on the door three times, the glass shuddering under each impact. “This is Ranger Megan Kluver of the National Park Service! Open up!”

“You know,” said Tim, “we could break in.”

“Not unless we absolutely have to,” said Ellie.

“Aw, you're no fun.”

Megan pounded the glass again.

“If anyone's home,” said Ellie, “they're ignoring us.”

Megan exhaled heavily. “And probably hoping we'll just go away.”

“Are we?”

“You escorted me up here to look for people. That's what I aim to do. The entrance to the caves is around back. I'd like to check there next. Then the employee housing we passed earlier.”

“And?”

“See if I can find anyone. Or if anyone comes out.”

“It's not working so far,” said Samantha.

“Besides,” said Tim, “we do look like the Flintstones meet Mad Max.”

A bright flash lit up the landscape in a brief glare. Moments later, a growing rumble rolled down and faded just as quickly. All eyes went skyward as the temperature dropped precipitously.

The dinos grunted and shifted nervously where they reposed.

“Sounds like it, too,” said Megan.

“We _are_ the Knights of _thunder_,” said Tim.

A small bit of something white floated down from the dark sky. Another joined it. Then another, and another.

“Cottonwood?” said Samantha.

“It's the wrong time of year for that,” said Megan. “And the nearest ones are down in Baker.”

Ellie tore her gaze away from the apparatus. She caught one of the bits of fluff on her palm, where it turned into a small bead of water. “Snow,” she said.

“Snow?” said Tim. “_Snow?!_ In _September???_”

“Gee,” Lex grunted, “my namesake. How fitting.”

Another flash washed through the growing snowfall, followed by a somewhat muffled peal of thunder.

“Thundersnow,” said Ellie.

“I've heard of that,” said Megan. “But I've never seen any.”

Lex gasped.

“It's not _that_ bad,” said Tim.

Lex shook her head. “It's not the thunder, you dolt.”

“Geez. Sorry.”

Lex braced one hand on the field-stone wall and pressed the other against her abdomen. Her mouth hung open and she blinked.

“It's time, isn't it?” said Ellie.

Lex nodded. She turned and half-hobbled over to the nearest bench and sat down.

“Did your water break?” Megan asked.

Lex nodded and began to remove her boots.

“Need help?” Ellie asked.

“That might be good, yeaaaaarrhhh!”

Ellie pulled Lex's boots off with a great deal of effort. “Next time,” she said, “we should find lace-up boots.”

“Yeah, well, they only had these ones at the store, remember?”

“Fair enough. We'll put that on the project list for things we can do over winter.”

Megan said, “Another one of the many things we're going to have to learn to do all over again, right?”

“Pretty much.”

Lex gritted her teeth through a contraction.

“Are you sure we can't get you back to town?” Megan asked. “It's only five miles, and it's all downhill.”

Ellie looked at Lex, then over her shoulder at the thickening snowfall. “Hmm. First babies are unpredictable. This could take all night, or she could deliver on the roadside halfway to Baker. We're sheltered where we are. There might be better places than this, but I can think of a whole lot of worse ones.”

Heavy footsteps and a dark shape in the snow materialized into Sundancer stomping up the stairs. She leaned her head down, sniffed at Lex, then turned abruptly toward Ellie and Megan and growled softly.

“Sundancer,” said Lex, “what are you doing?” She reached up and stroked the animal's snout.

Lex tipped her head back and tried unsuccessfully to stifle a half-scream. Sundancer looked at her, then tipped her snout down, shoved Ellie halfway across the patio, and snorted irritably. She hit Megan and they both went down in a tangle of arms and legs.

“What was that for?” Lex demanded. Her allosaur just snorted. “Stop that, you idiot, I'm just having a baby!”

Ellie climbed to her feet and rubbed her backside. Alicia let out a wail.

“Great,” said Tim, “you set off the baby.”

“She looks fine,” said Megan. “She's still not happy about it, though. Maybe you should take her off and set her out of the way.”

Ellie nodded, unslung the baby pack, and checked her daughter over before putting her on the floor beside the building. She caught a distinctive whiff.

“Can you do that a little more over there?” Lex said, gesturing toward the cafe. “Because I might hurl.”

“But you have an iron stomach,” said Megan.

“Not right now, I don't.” Lex punctuated her statement with a rather loud groan.

Minutes later, Alicia had stopped crying, mostly.

“I think Alexis is upsetting Alicia,” said Megan.

Lex hrmphed. “Alexis is upsetting herself,” she grumbled. She let out a full-throated yell. “Whose...effing...idea was it to make this so damned painful?” she demanded.

“God's?” said Megan.

“Well, God, if He exists, can go do unspeakable things to Himself,” Lex growled.

Another flash of lightning lit up the waning afternoon followed by another peal of thunder.

“No,” said Ellie, “I don't think we're going anywhere. Tim, go get Haakon, would you?”

“Sure.” Tim took two steps toward the stairs and was driven back by a still-irritable Sundancer. He exhaled heavily and dropped over the wall. “Your dinosaur is a pest, you know that?”

“Takes one to know one,” Lex said.

“That's enough,” said Ellie. “Tim, be as quick as you can, okay?”

“No problem!” he said through the snow. A minute later, he and Skywalker thumped past, a grey-ish shape through the snow.

“Thanks for that,” said Lex.

“It needed doing. That, and he likes to be useful.”

“And he doesn't want to hear me wail like a bansheeeeeeaaaah!”

“That, too.” Ellie moved toward Lex and Sundancer growled. “Megan, would you?”

Lex yelled again and Sundancer growled.

Megan shook her head. “No way. I am not running that gauntlet.”

“Are you sure you can't break us in?”

Megan shook her head. “They don't exactly issue master keys, and I don't know how to pick locks. And please don't ask me to break the glass. It's probably shatter-resistant anyway.”

“Samantha,” said Ellie, “how quick are you?”

“Me?” Samantha squeaked.

“One of you has to do it,” said Lex. “I can't deliver my own baby!”

“I can’t!”

“Sundancer won't let me or Megan near her. Just go slow, and if she growls, just step back and we'll come up with something else. Okay?”

Samantha nodded wordlessly.

“Don't worry, she's probably just being protective.”

“You think?” Lex half-growled.

Samantha flattened herself against the high windows and scooted through the alcove. Sundancer's head followed, nostrils flaring. Samantha grabbed Lex's hand and squeezed.

Lex sat on the bench, taking slow, deep breaths.

“Samantha,” said Lex, “can you get the kit?”

Samantha nodded weakly and took several tentative steps out of view.

Her voice wrapped around the dinosaur. “Oh, hold still, you beast! And don't snort at me in that tone of voice! You're worse than Ol' Yeller.”

Ellie half-suppressed a snort of laughter.

“I'm glad you're amused,” Lex said through clenched teeth.

“She's adapted quite well. I think she might have potential as one of your Knights.”

“You think so...aaaarrrgghhh!”

A minute later, Samantha stepped into view carrying a large bundle. “Is this it?” she asked.

“Perfect,” said Ellie. “Thank you.”

“Samantha,” said Megan, “if we give you instructions, can you deliver the baby?”

“Me?” Samantha squealed. “I don't know...”

“Hey,” said Lex, “you're the only one my silly dinosaur will let near me. So you're it.”

Samantha started to shake her head.

Lex took the girl's hands in her own. “You can do thaaarrrr!” Lex took several deep breaths after that had passed. “You can do this,” she repeated. Then to Ellie and Megan, “I am not hee-hee-hoo-ing, by the way, so you can just forget it!”

“Okay, okay,” said Megan, “whatever works for you.”

_Great_, Ellie thought, _a nine-year-old is delivering my foster daughter's baby beneath the protective glare of an Allosaurus. No, that's not weird at all._

Another flash lit up the thickly-falling snow, followed by more thunder. In the parking area, the remaining dinos shook snow off themselves.

“Megan,” said Ellie, “I'm going to put the paras under those poplars.” She dropped over the wall and shushed through the dusting that had already accumulated. Sally and Moonshine had already taken a few steps toward cover.

It took some effort to climb the six-foot wall back to the patio under Sundancer's watchful eye. Lex’s armor and sodden jeans lay in a rumpled pile near the bench. Time merged into a stream of instructions from Megan, suggestions from Ellie, questions from Samantha, and intermittent screaming, snorting, and thunder.

Ellie went over the math in her head. Eleven miles round trip, at some thirty miles an hour, that was roughly twenty minutes of travel time, thirty if Tim dawdled a little. Maybe twenty minutes more to scrape up the necessary people. It couldn't take more than an hour. What was taking so long?

“How's it going over there?” she asked.

Samantha held up a thumb and forefinger. “About like this?” she said.

“Wow,” said Megan, “you're fast! This usually takes hours.”

“So I've been told,” Lex said.

“Um,” said Samantha, “aren't we supposed to have some boiling water and stuff?”

“Assuming,” said Ellie, “that Tim brings back a stove.”

“If he doesn't?”

“Then we'll have to wing it.”

Lex groaned.

After a long while, Ellie blinked in the after-image from a lightning strike. She exchanged a glance with Megan.

Megan said, “If they don't get back here soon...”

“Then what?” Lex asked.

“Then we're going to have to do this by feel.”

“What!?” Samantha blurted.

“It's starting to get dark.”

Ellie peered into the snow. “She's right.”

“How much juice is left in the flashlight batteries?” Lex asked.

“We might be finding out,” said Megan.

“What if they run out?” Samantha asked.

“Then things are going to get very interesting.”

“Can't you start a campfire?” Lex asked.

“Yeah,” said Samantha. “Get a little fire going or something. Why didn't we do that already?”

“We were afraid it was going to attract some attention,” said Ellie.

“Mom,” said Lex, “who but us is crazy enough to be out in this anywaaaaahhhhhhgggg!”

“Good point. Megan, do you have things covered?”

“No problem,” said Megan.

“That's easy for _you_ to say,” said Samantha.

“You'll do fine,” said Ellie.

“Yeah, but all I've had to do is watch.”

“And you're doing a great job. Keep up the good work.”

Ellie dropped over the wall and began scrounging the woods off the south end of the building. She returned with an armload of fallen branches, all pine and juniper, mostly smaller than her own wrist. If there was one thing about gathering firewood in arid regions, it was that it was almost always ridiculously easy to find dry campfire fuel. The material landed on the patio with the expected dull clatter.

She hauled herself up and went to work, thankful that the building provided a windbreak from the chill air pouring down from the mountain. Even so, the smoke kept shifting. It seemed to follow her, no matter where she stood.

“Smoke follows beauty,” said Megan.

Ellie coughed. “And beauty was a beast,” she retorted.

“Okay,” said a woman from behind Ellie, “nobody move.”

Ellie craned her head around. Firelight danced over a woman in a rumpled Park Ranger uniform that looked like it hadn't been properly washed in years. Dirt streaked a face that had apparently tried to tan, but wound up half burned for its trouble. She held a revolver pointed directly at Ellie.

Lex said, “What the...” Her words merged into a scream.

“What's wrong with her?” the woman demanded.

Lex pointed at her abdomen. “What's it look like?” she snarled.

The woman's eyes darted around. They went wide when she noticed Sundancer. The gun swung toward her.

“Don't shoot her,” said Ellie. “You'll just make her mad.”

“What the hell is _that!?_”

“She's an Allosaurus fragilis. Her name is Sundancer.”

Sundancer snorted.

“Wh...wh...what?!” the woman stammered. She shook her head sharply. “Who the hell are you people, what the hell are you doing here, and how the hell do you have a...a dinosaur?”

Megan said, “Megan, Arches Ranger.”

“Arches?”

“Long story.”

Lex let out a loud moan.

“I'll tell you between contractions,” Megan added. “This is Doctor Ellen Sattler-Grant. Her daughters Samantha and Alexis Snow. We came up here looking for my boyfriend. Alexis here went into labor.”

“The rest,” said Ellie, “is an even longer story. So why don't you put that down?”

The woman looked back at Sundancer. “Is it...she...as dangerous as she looks?”

“Yes.”

“More,” said Lex.

Sundancer growled slightly.

“Sundancer,” said Lex, “stop iaaaaaahhhh!”

Sundancer snorted.

“Does she need help?” the woman asked.

“We have it covered,” said Megan.

“Besides,” Ellie added, “you'd never get past Sundancer.”

“I won't even try,” said the woman.

“Good. Now, put that down, please. Because if Sundancer thinks you're a threat to Alexis, she'll eat you.”

“She's not kidding!” said Lex.

“She won't even let me or Megan over there,” said Ellie.

The woman hesitated, then slowly lowered the gun.

“Were you in there the whole time?” Megan asked.

The woman nodded. “We were hoping you'd go away.”

“We?” said Ellie.

The woman turned around. “Rick? Get out here. But slowly. I guess we both have long stories,” she added.

Ellie shrugged. “We have time.”

Presently, a man in a Ranger uniform stepped out of the building behind Sharon. “What's up...oh. Um...”

“Don't ask,” said the woman. “Yet,” she added.

“I was just...” His eyes went wide, and he cursed.

“Um!” said Samantha. “You said a bad word!”

Sundancer snorted loudly.

“Rick,” said Ellie, “don't. Just, don't.”

Rick worked his mouth before finding his voice. “What the hell is _that?!_”

“An Allosaurus,” said Lex through clenched teeth.

“What,” said Megan, “you didn't see us coming?”

“Well...yeah, but...”

“Let me guess,” said Ellie, “you just saw what you expected to see, right?”

He nodded.

Ellie grunted. She'd seen and heard that every day for years. That particular psychological phenomenon had much to do with the onset of the Thanatocene.

“Her brother went back to town for her husband and...”

“Uh...what?” said Rick. “Into town?”

“Is that a problem?”

“There's no one down there anymore.”

“Except us, now.”

“How many of you are there? What are those things you rode in on? And what are you doing here?”

Lex let out a full-bodied scream. Sundancer growled.

“Rick,” said Ellie, “I want you to break eye contact with her, and take one very slow step backward.”

“You'd better do it,” said Lex. “I've seen her eat people for less.”

Rick nodded, but complied.

“If you make her comfortable,” said Ellie, “we'll tell you everything.”

“Well,” said the woman, “we still have some ibuprofen.”

“That won't even take the edge off,” Lex growled.

“It might, um, take the edge off the edge?”

Lex ground through another contraction. “I'm a Knight of Thunder,” she panted. “I can do this.”

“Okay, okay.” She held out her hand. “Sorry. Rick, go get that ibuprofen anyway. I forgot my manners. Sharon Carter.”

“Doctor Ellie Sattler.”

Sharon's eyebrow rose. She looked at Megan. “But you said...”

“Mine's in paleobotany,” said Ellie.

“Ah. And yours?”

“Well,” said Megan, “I'm not technically a doctor. I just have advanced First-Responder training. I've picked up a lot beyond that by osmosis mostly.”

“Partly self-trained,” Sharon said flatly. “That's dangerous.”

“Less dangerous than untrained.”

“Can we argue later,” said Lex, “and do something about my daughter?”

“How do you know it's a girl?”

“I don't!” she shrieked.

“Okay, okay, keep your...is that armor?”

“Duh. I'm a Knight of Thunder. Of course it's armor!” As if on cue, another peal of thunder rolled over the roof.

“You guys have maternity armor?” said Sharon.

“More or less,” said Lex.

“What happened here?” Megan asked.

Sharon closed her eyes and exhaled heavily. “Most of us try not to talk about it. Three, maybe four years ago, we heard about some rabies outbreak in Salt Lake. Little more than rumor at the time, complete with conflicting accounts from various sources and contradictory advice from health experts. After a couple of weeks, our Super basically gave up and told us to 'wait and see.'

“So we did. A month after that, the first case appeared in town. Stan, the guy who runs...ran the grocery. I still don't know where he picked it up. Nobody does. Well, best anyone could do was just to watch him. I never heard the details beyond that he got sick and died. Happened pretty quick, too. And it's not like we even have a clinic here. Nearest hospital is over in Ely, an hour each way, and that's if you have a lead foot. But then the craziest thing happened.”

“He revived the next day and attacked the nearest person,” said Ellie.

Sharon nodded. “You've seen it. Of course you have. Everyone has by now. Anyway, his nephew managed to lock him in his room. But he'd already bitten a half-dozen people. They all got sick, died, and came back, too. Within a fortnight, the community had collapsed. Half the population was either dead, not-dead, or holed up in their homes.

“The week after that, the first infected visitor showed up at the Park. She died, came back, and bit a Ranger. He did the same, and bit the Super. Eventually, I wound up in charge. By then, the phones had gone down and I had no choice but to officially close the Park. Ostensibly on safety grounds, but also because we were down to a half-dozen people. Not just deaths. A few people left for home.

“I accidentally discovered that a severe head injury stops the Dead. But by then, there was no real way to get the word out. So we moved all the survivors from town up here to vacated Ranger housing. At least half of them didn't want to. It wasn't just leaving their homes, which it was that, of course. But they were also afraid they'd catch it if they stayed where the Dead had been. So far, that hasn't been a problem.

“Winter came, and a few people froze to death. A few others starved. We had a couple of suicides. Come spring, we went back and cleaned up the mess in town. We hauled the bodies out and burned them.”

“We saw that on our way in,” said Ellie.

“Some people protested it, but I insisted for health reasons. Some also protested the mass grave we had to dig. Said it was dehumanizing. A couple of people had the nerve to call me a Nazi.” Sharon rolled her eyes. “My husband is Hispanic. Anyway, we'd just moved all the abandoned vehicles away from the road when the first herd arrived.” She shuddered.

“But you know all about herds, don't you?”

Ellie nodded.

“Six more people died in that. Just ripped apart. I can still hear their screams on quiet nights. Which out here, is most of them. So we planted veggie gardens around the Ranger housing, and others nearby. That barely got us through the next winter. So we plowed up some of the bottomland where Lehman Creek drains out onto the basin. We found some chickens that had somehow survived and been using those for eggs.”

“And the native flora? The pine nuts, biscuitroot, onions, Mariposa tulips, prickly pear?”

Sharon chuckled. “That stuff kept us from starving completely.

“Anyway, last year, some guys came through and made some trouble. Don't ask. Suffice it to say, it's like the Wild West all over again.”

“The heads on the rebar?”

Sharon nodded. “So we pretty much stay up here and if our sentries spot anyone coming, we make ourselves scarce.”

“So you spotted us,” said Ellie, “and didn't wait for the details.”

Sharon nodded. “Pretty much.” She sighed, and glanced at Lex, who sat there gritting her teeth intermittently and trying not to make too much noise. “Which is, I guess, another reason we didn't notice the dinosaurs.”

“And you?” she asked Megan.

“My story is pretty close.” She told Sharon what she'd told Ellie and the team that first night at Arches. “Eventually, I was the only one left.”

Sharon flinched. “And you left the Park unstaffed?”

Megan sighed. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. Or at least staying there sucked a lot more than throwing in with a bunch of people I just met. And, well, dinosaurs!”

Sharon laughed. “There is that, I guess.”

Ellie started in with her story, punctuated by Lex's contractions.

“So you're saying,” said Sharon, “that you started this whole thing?”

“Uh...no,” said Ellie. “We got just as caught up in it as you. We just...got in on the ground floor, I guess might be a good way to put it.”

“And you couldn't have stopped it?” she demanded.

“Pft! I wish!”

“It killed my grandpa,” Lex snarled. “My brother had to re-kill him.”

Sharon winced. Then, “Wait. You're Hammond's granddaughter? John Hammond? CEO of InGen? That John Hammond?”

“Has everyone heard of this guy but me?” Rick asked.

“He's kind of the Bill Gates of genetic engineering.”

“That's one way to put it,” Ellie said.

“Oh?” said Sharon.

“Hammond was a visionary. He made Monsanto look downright myopic. But he had a wide streak of hubris, and that was ultimately his downfall. The incident on Isla Nublar might have been a minor hiccup to his company. The accident record for Jurassic Park wasn't any higher than for any other zoo, and much lower than most manufacturing sectors, especially in developing countries. Add to that the limited liability clauses in the standard employment contracts, and InGen was in little financial danger. But the virus?” Ellie shook her head.

“It's Alan's working hypothesis that it was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. Not at once, most likely. Probably over centuries in the wake of a cascading ecological collapse.”

“Like the one we're in the middle of now?” said Rick. “Rain forests, whales, bat fungus, the passenger pigeon, coral reefs. The list is extensive.”

“That's why a lot of us went into Resource Management,” said Sharon.

“To save the planet,” said Ellie.

Rick nodded. “Yeah. Before we irrevocably screw it up, if we're not already too late.”

“Then along comes this virus of yours,” said Sharon. “Some of us called it God's judgment on sinners. Others saw it as Mother Earth's way of fighting back. Or something from outer space. Or some biotesting gone wrong.”

Ellie shook her head. “Some things should have stayed extinct. Look, this has been hard on everyone. Those who are to blame have paid for it with their lives. The rest of us are just trying desperately to do damage control. With limited success, I might add.”

Sharon grunted. “I guess. But you do realize I have people still looking for someone to lynch over this.”

“They'd be wasting their energy, then.”

Ellie looked up at large, off-white flakes materializing out of the blackness that had fallen during the history lessons. Firelight bathed everything in a soft yellow-orange glow offset by sharp shadows and brought every detail into sharp relief, from Sundancer's light coat of fluff to the sheen of sweat on Lex's skin.

Flakes hissed as they melted above the fire or touched the hot stone beside it. Every so often, Sundancer shook her head and sent clumps of snow flying.

“How long do you expect this to last?” Ellie asked.

“You mean the snow?” said Sharon. “Best guess, it'll probably break up in the wee hours and melt off shortly after dawn. Come late November, though, mid-December at the latest, it'll be right down on the basin floor.”

“How deep?” Ellie asked.

“In Baker? Maybe an inch at a time. Powdery stuff, though. The most total accumulation anyone remembers is about a foot. Twice that here. More further on up, of course. Gets pretty cold though. Not Montana cold, mind you, but cold enough.”

“I don't suppose anyone will mind if we commandeer a few barns and garages.”

Rick shrugged. “Doubt it. Folks in town are either dead, or moved up here. Might be good manners to ask first. How many is a few?”

“A few dozen.”

“Damn,” said Sharon, “that's pretty much every building in town. How many, um, dinosaurs do you have?”

“Many,” said Megan.

“A great many,” Lex added breathlessly from her perch on the edge of the bench. “And my butt's going numb!” she complained. “And where the hell are Tim and Haakon?”

Ellie looked past the curtain of flakes into the total darkness. A flash lit up the flakes, the snow-coated asphalt, and the edge of the first planting strip.

“Alexis,” she said, “I don't think they're going to make it.”

“What?!”

“It's pitch black out there and it's snowing up here. If it's any consolation, when I was your age, they didn't allow the father into the delivery room.”

“Not helpful,” Lex growled.

“Besides,” Ellie added, “I'd put even odds on whether Sundancer would let Haakon near you.”

“I'm worried about hiiiiaaaarhhhh!”

“I know you are. But right now, honey, you have one job. Samantha, so do you.”

“Samantha,” said Megan, “how's she doing?”

The girl flipped on the flashlight, then moments later held up a thumb and forefinger.

“Not bad. Not bad at all. Alexis, your squat-hold record is, what, ten minutes?”

“Twelve. But that's without being in labor for an hour.”

“More like three hours, I think,” said Ellie.

“Ugh!”

“I know, right? Now, let's get this baby delivered.”

“What do you think I've been doing?!”

As so many times before, time ran into a seamless blur, this time one of snow, darkness, and the screams of a mother in labor.

After a long while, Samantha yelped.

“What is it?” said Megan.

“I see a head!” Then she added, for what had to have been at least the two-dozenth time, “I am _never_ having a baby!”

Ellie chuckled to quietly, but kept an unspoken, 'Just you wait, young lady,' to herself.

Megan barked instructions and the minutes stretched on.

“Get out, you little turd!” Lex snarled.

“You need to push _now_,” said Megan.

Lex let out a feral yell. Then, “I _am_ pushing!” she snarled.

In the firelight, Ellie saw Samantha hold up a towel. “Got it! Um...now what?”

Megan rattled off more instructions, mostly reminders of the crash-course she'd given in previous hours.

“Okay,” said Samantha pensively. “Got that...and that...and that...” she said as she worked. “This is _so_ gross!”

Ellie exchanged glances with Megan. Both women nodded a wordless, 'Next time, we do midwifery training.'

Several minutes later, a blob that was probably the afterbirth hit the paving with a dull _splut_.

“Ew,” said Samantha.

“Can I sit down now?” Lex panted.

“Yup,” said Megan.

“Good job!” said Ellie.

Sundancer peered at the baby, took several deep sniffs, and snorted.

“Sundancer,” said Lex, “if you eat my baby, you're toast!”

Samantha handed the towel-swaddled child to Lex, who accepted it with a visible mixture of joy and relief.

“It's a boy!” Samantha gushed.

“Uh...a boy?” said Lex.

“He has a...a...a weenie,” said Samantha. “I think.”

Lex unwrapped the towel, peered at the child, then flopped the cloth back over the tiny body. “I have a boy!”

“You do?” said Megan.

“What the hell am I going to do with a _boy!?_” Lex demanded.

“Um...” said Sharon, “why do you say that like it's a problem?”

“Because we had names picked out for a girl. Snow-related names. Autumn was at the top of the list.”  
“  
Autumn Snow. I like it.”

“I can't name a boy Autumn!”

“Why not?”

“Because that's a girl's name!”

“Says who?”

“Duh. Everyone?”

“But Haakon didn’t like Autumn,” said Samantha. “He said it was silly.”

Lex hrmphed.

“You hafta name him somethin’.”

“Eventually,” said Sharon. At their collective gaze, she said, “Plenty of cultures delay naming a child. Years, among some peoples.”

“I am not,” said Lex, “going to call him ‘the boy,’ or ‘the dude.’”

“The Dude abides!” said Rick.

“Ha, ha.”

“How about Storm?”

“Uh, no. Tim would like that too much.”

“Why?”

“That was one of the X-Men. He’d never let me live that down. Just because my son was born in a storm, that doesn’t mean I’m going to name him that. Even if it _was_ thundersnow.” She looked at her son. “Thunder. That’s it! Thunder Snow.”

“Haakon is gonna say that’s even sillier!” said Samantha.

“Well, he’s not here, and I just did ninety-nine percent of the work. I think that earns me the right. It’s a strong name. A name that means something. Haakon is just going to have to deal with it.”  
“I think it works,” said Ellie.

“So do I,” said Megan.

“Can we go to bed now?” Samantha asked.


	13. Not-So-Great Basin

An unspeakable glare jolted Ellie into consciousness. She squeezed her eyes shut against it, the last shreds of the night's paltry sleep ripped away. She sat up, ignoring a sore right hip where it had rested too long against a bump in the flagstone. She should have known better than to simply test her eyelids for light-leaks after being up until the wee hours with a new mother.

She suppressed a groan and sat up. Sundancer still dozed on the steps, like Ellie's childhood cat who had insisted on lounging across wedges of firewood stacked beside the family wood-stove. She'd never understood how that could possibly have been comfortable, and she didn't understand it now.

Lex and Samantha lay huddled against the allosaur, both covered with a woolen blanket salvaged from some military surplus outfit in Texas.

A few small flames flickered from several wrist-sized sticks on the fire.

“Good morning, sleepy-head,” said Megan softly.

Ellie grunted. “How long have you been up?”

“Long enough to watch the snow melt.”

Ellie shook her head. “You whippersnappers.”

Megan laughed. “I guess you want me to get off your damned lawn, too, right?”

Ellie chuckled softly. “What happened to our hosts?”

“Took cover. It wasn't like that crazy dinosaur was going to let any of the rest of us go anywhere.”

Ellie climbed to her feet, ignoring the crick in her right knee and left ankle. A little ways away, Sally munched on poplar twigs while Moonshine grazed the overgrown grass beneath it. She stepped to one of the binocular machines and peered through it.

She grunted. “Still no sign of them. There's some smoke rising out there.”

“That could mean anything, couldn't it?"

Ellie sighed. “All sorts of anythings. Still, that's an awful lot of smoke. I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Maybe we should pack it in.”

“Yeah,” said Ellie pensively, “I think you're right. We should rouse the girls.”

By the wall, Alicia stirred.

“No rest for the wicked, huh?” said Megan.

Ellie nodded. “Maybe I can get to her before...” She'd barely taken two steps before Thunder began to fuss.

“Oops?” said Megan.

“That's for sure,” said Ellie. She dropped to a knee and turned her attention to an unhappy Alicia.

Several paces away, Lex stirred.

“Good morning...Mom,” said Ellie.

Lex groaned. “It is, isn't it? And I am, aren't I?”

“Uh-huh.” Ellie shot Lex a grin. “Welcome to the wonderful world of motherhood!”

“You said that last night.” Lex twisted into a sitting position and winced.

“You okay?”

“I'm sore. And not just in the expected places.”

Lex nudged Samantha. The girl noised, uncurled herself, and rubbed bleary eyes.

“Samantha,” said Lex, “will you hold Thunder for a few minutes?” She thrust the baby at Samantha.

Samantha blinked. “Uh...okay. Why?”

“Just do it, please?”

Samantha accepted Thunder awkwardly. “But he's fussing!”

“I know, and I'm sorry, but I'll deal with him in a few minutes,” Lex said as she climbed onto wobbly legs and reached into one of her saddle bags.

“Alexis,” said Megan, “your first responsibility is...”

Lex held up a plastic bag with a large white lump inside.

“Oh. Why didn't you say so?”

Lex rolled her eyes, and stumbled off down the stairs and toward the poplars.

Megan exhaled. “Please tell me I've grown out of that.”

Ellie chuckled. “I'll give her credit for trying to remember her manners under the circumstances. That, or it's lingering teenage embarrassment over bodily functions.”

“Or both?”

“Probably.”

“Um...Ellie?” said Samantha. “What do I do with the baby?”

“Besides hold him?”

“But I hafta pee, too!”

Megan reached out. “I'll hold him.”

Samantha walked over stiff-legged and handed Thunder to Megan before tottering off down the steps. Sundancer roused, swung her head in that direction and snorted.

“Geez,” said Samantha over her shoulder, “you go from zero to Godzilla in ten seconds, don't you?”

Ellie cringed. “You've never seen a Tee-rex, young lady!” she called. She cocked an eyebrow at Megan.

“Nope,” said Megan, “I already went.”

“Good. I don't suppose you could watch them both for a minute or five?”

Megan shook her head. “You'd think this was a high school locker room, wouldn't you?” At Ellie's quizzical look, Megan added, “What, weren't girls just as bad as the boys when you were that age?”

Ellie nodded. “Valid,” she said. “But I'd like to think my manners have improved.”

“I don't know about that. Better subtext, maybe.”

Ellie laughed, and climbed over the wall. Minutes later, she returned.

Lex stood with her back against Sundancer's flank, nursing Thunder. Behind her, Samantha heaved the birthing kit up the allosaur's other side. She grunted with the effort.

“You want help with that?” Lex asked.

“No, I got it.”

“Looks like you have a squire, Sir Alexis,” Ellie teased.

“I'm not a skire!” Samantha protested. A moment later, she fumbled the load. “Oof!”

Sundancer’s nostrils flared. She tipped her head back in the well-recognized posture of scent-taking.

“What do you smell, girl?” Alexis asked.

Sundancer continued to sniff.

Ellie’s own nose perked up a moment later. “Is that…?”

“Hey, guys!” came Sharon’s voice from across the parking lot. She coasted to a halt by the curb on a well-used mountain bike and dismounted in the same motion, coming to a hopping stop. She pulled a bundle from a bike pack. “I brought...”

“Bacon?!” Alexis gushed. “Real bacon?”

“Yeah. You could smell that?”

“The breeze is blowing this way,” said Megan.

“And,” Ellie added, “Alexis and I both have, shall we say, new-mom senses.”

Sharon tilted her head. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“To be fair,” said Alexis, “Sundancer smelled it first.”

Sharon cast the allosaur a suspicious glance. “She’s not going to steal it, is she?”

“She will if you just stand there with it.”

“How about I go around back and you gals come inside?”

“Can we?” Samantha pleaded.

“Well,” said Ellie, “if we’re fast. We really should get going. We spotted some smoke down in the valley and I have a bad feeling about it.”

“Oh?” said Sharon. “Uh...hold on.” She returned the bundle and swung her bike onto a service drive at the cafe end of the building. A few minutes later, the cafe door opened. “Okay,” said Sharon, “show me.”

Ellie gestured toward the binocular machines.

After a couple of minutes, Sharon made a pensive hmming. “Multiple plumes. North side of town. Less than a quarter mile from the Visitor Center. What are your people doing down there?”

“Could be a herd,” said Ellie.

“Yeah, you did say one of your parasaurs was, uh, trigger-happy.”

Ellie snorted a half-laugh. “That’s one way to put it.”

“If it’s a herd, you guys sure are making a mess. But...wait...there are vehicles down there, I just caught the glint of auto glass.” Sharon let out a curse. “It’s Ely.”

“You sure?”

“If I’m wrong, I’ll eat my hat.”

Ellie looked at Lex.

“Of course I’m going,” Lex returted to Ellie’s unvoiced question.

“With your newborn?” said Sharon.

“I’m a Knight of Thunder. It’s my duty.”

“Those a...holes are dangerous.”

“So am I.”

“Besides,” said Samantha, “we’re always in danger.”

“Well,” said Sharon pensively, “take some advice, shoot first and ask questions later.”

“Speaking of taking things,” said Lex, “do you still have that ibuprofen?”

Sharon nodded. “Sure.”

“Oh, good!” Lex gushed. “Because I might have to sit side-saddle and I haven't trained for that. Even then...” She cringed.

“Okay, you guys go eat your bacon. It’s on the counter in there. And don’t worry about your birthing mess, we’ll clean it up. If the scavengers don’t get to it first.”

“Sundancer ate it,” said Samantha.

“Ah. Well, we’ve had visitors leave plenty of other kinds of messes. You all get going, I’ll round up some help, and we’ll catch up. Even if I have to bribe people with sex.”

Ellie shot her a look. Sharon returned it with one that said, “Don’t ask.”

* * *

The twenty minutes it took to eat a half-dozen strips of bacon that Ellie really wished she had time to enjoy and then pack up felt like an hour. By the time the junipers along the road faded out into sagebrush, all signs of the thundersnow storm had completely vanished. Ahead, several grey smoke plumes rose high into a clear blue sky.

Ellie checked and re-checked her crossbow. In her peripheral vision, she saw Lex put an arrow to the string, two more ready in her bow hand. Just ahead, Megan fingered the retention strap on her pistol for the dozenth time.

“Ellie,” Megan called over her shoulder, “do you hear that?”

“It sounds like...”

“Is that gunfire?” Samantha blurted.

“Yep,” said Megan.

“I have a very bad feeling about this,” said Ellie. “Samantha, I really think you should stay here.”

“And do what?”

“I’ll cover her,” said Lex.

“Unless Megan...” Ellie began.

“Is busy with someone’s messy wound,” Megan finished.

Ellie winced.

The columns of smoke and the pop-pop-pop of gunfire grew as the distance shrank. The drone of engines, at least one diesel and several smaller ones, faded in and out. Somewhere ahead, an explosion rolled across the sagebrush and a puff of black smoke joined the other plumes. Samantha whimpered.

Ellie settled her helm and checked her weapons one more time. She drew a deep breath, held it for a full minute, then let it out slowly. As one, she and Lex brought their animals to a half-canter. Lex brought her bow to quarter-draw.

“You okay over there?” Ellie asked Lex.

“More or less,” Lex replied through clenched teeth. “I'll keep you posted.”

“Fair enough.”

A hundred yards ahead, about where she’d met the road the day before, someone on a quad-runner peeled onto the asphalt with a spray of dust and gravel, and stopped in the middle of the road. Sunlight glinted off his studded black leather jacket and spiked helmet and something he held in one hand.

Distance-muted profanity met Ellie’s ears moments before a succession of pops almost at the instant something whistled past her ear.

Lex drew and loosed. A heartbeat later, the guy on the quad screamed, dropped his weapon, and began pawing at the arrow that had sprouted from his shoulder. That, Ellie thought, was his last mistake.

“Don’t look, Samantha,” Ellie called.

Moments later, Sundander roared, bent down, and silenced the man with a well-placed chomp to the head. She pulled him from the quad. A single shake sent his body tumbling onto the pavement where it lay in a briefly-expanding pool of blood. Presently, his head joined the rest of him.

“Ew!” said Samantha.

“You looked,” said Lex.

“I couldn’t not look,” she protested.

Megan’s brakes squealed. Two heartbeats later, her rifle spoke. Fifty yards to the right, a form in camo lurched away from the rusted shell of an early-model pickup. Megan fired again. The person swiveled left with a high-pitched yelp. Megan took aim. The figure threw its left arm straight up in the air.

“Don’t shoot!” she yelled.

“Dammit,” Ellie muttered. She brought Sally to a halt.

“You!” Lex called. “Get your ass over here, bitch! Slowly!”

Ellie cleared her throat.

“What?”

“If we want her to cooperate...” Ellie let the rest dangle.

Lex let out her breath in a huff. “I guess,” she grumbled.

Seconds later, the woman in camo stumbled across the gravel shoulder and stopped on the road. Ellie took one look at her terrified expression, and said, “You can put your arm down.”

The woman did as she was told.

“Now,” said Lex, “who are you, what are you doing here, and why are you associated with Ely?”

“Who says I’m with Ely?” the woman said through gritted teeth.

“You were skulking about in the brush,” said Megan.

The woman pursed her lips. “You shot me,” she growled.

“Again with the skulking.”

“You’re the first prisoner we’ve ever taken,” said Lex.

“P-prisoner?” the woman stammered.

“Or not,” said Ellie. “That depends on you.”

“I’ll put it this way,” said Megan, “how much do you want it to hurt when I patch you up?”

“You’re a...doctor?”

“Wilderness responder training, mostly. Otherwise self-taught. Which means I’ve never taken an oath to do no harm.”

“Isn’t that against the Geneva Convention or something?” the woman said.

“We never signed it,” said Lex. “And in case you haven’t noticed, no one’s been paying much attention to that sort of thing.”

The woman squeezed her eyes shut briefly. “Aura Miner. They press-ganged me.”

“Then you’ll have no trouble squealing on them.”

“Aura,” said Megan, “may I call you 'Aura?'”

Aura nodded.

“Aura,” Megan continued, “sit down.”

Aura blinked.

“I said, sit down. Before you fall down. You've lost blood,” she added.

Aura lowered herself shakily onto the gravel, dropping the last foot.

“Now, lay down.”

Aura's lip began to quiver.

“Oh, stop it,” Megan snapped. “We don't have time for this. You're going into shock, we need information, and if you cooperate, we'll protect you. I'm not going to torture you, but I meant what I said. I'm currently not in the mood to be gentle and it's up to you to change my mind. Now, start talking!”

A flurry of gunfire erupted in the general direction of the Visitor Center and just as quickly ceased.

“We're running out of time,” said Lex.

“I agree,” said Ellie. “New plan. Samantha, you stay here with Megan and Aura. Sir Alexis and I will go help our people kick Ely's ass.”

“Works for me,” said Megan. She turned to Aura. “And don't make me have to gag you. Unless you like the taste of duct tape.”

“Don't take too long,” said Ellie. “I'm pretty sure we already need your skills.”

Megan cringed. “If this turns into a reminder of Civil War history...”

“Are you kidding?” said Lex. “It's probably already more like 'Clash of the Titans.'”

“Oh, joy.” Megan turned to Aura. “Anything you want to tell us before my friends here go crashing your party?”

Aura glared. “They're not my party. They're my captors.”

Megan raised an eyebrow. “Captors who let you sneak around in the sagebrush?”

“They're holding my family for ransom, okay? If I don't do what they tell me...” She broke off.

“Okay, okay, don't get your knickers in a twist.”

“Brad was supposed to keep an eye on me. He's the one you killed. With your...whatever the hell that is.”

“Allosaurus,” said Lex.

“Bullshit.”

“Moo,” Lex glowered.

Aura frowned, then said, “We were supposed to make sure no one else came down from uphill.”

“Where were the others last time you saw them?” Ellie asked.

“Up the road. Holed up in the Visitor Center. This side of that smoke.” She pointed toward the thick column of black smoke towering over the northern edge of town. “Told us to come here and stay no matter what. Heard all sorts of gunfire all night long. Occasional screaming. Can I have a pain killer?”

“As soon as we verify what you said,” said Megan.

“How many?” Lex asked.

“A hundred or so,” said Aura. “A lot less than that now. Unless Brad was lying through his teeth.”

Ellie and Lex exchanged glances. With the very occasional pop-pop-pop of gunfire, that could only mean two things.

Lex nodded. “We'll be back,” she said in her best German accent.

“Just don't burn down my Visitor Center!” Megan barked after them.

“No guarantees!” Ellie called over her shoulder.

Ellie nudged Sally into a fast canter. The dinosaur shifted to a bipedal posture and chewed up the distance between the road and the Visitor Center.

Greg waved from the near side of a cinder-block structure less than a hundred yards from the parking lot. Ellie and Lex reined in.

“Good to see you!” Cindy gushed.

“Yeah,” said Greg, “last we heard you were in labor.”

Lex cocked a thumb over her shoulder. “Complications arose, ensued, and were overcome,” she said.

“Same,” said Greg.

“Oo,” Cindy cooed, “may I see?”

“Honey,” said Greg, “we're in the middle of a battle and you...”

Cindy silenced him with a glare. He raised his hands in silent surrender.

“Maybe later,” said Ellie.

“He's not much to look at right now. Still all wrinkly and everything,” Lex added.

“He?” said Cindy. “A boy?”

“His name is Thunder.”

Greg half-stifled a laugh. Cindy elbowed him in the ribs.

Ellie exhaled slowly. “Okay, we can coo over the baby later. What did we miss?”

“Well,” Greg said, “I assume you met the guys over that way.” He gestured toward the road toward Lehman.

“We killed one and wounded the other.”

“What about the other three?” Cindy asked.

Lex and Ellie exchanged a glance. “We left Megan and Samantha with the one we wounded.”

“She told us a little,” Lex added.

“Dangit,” said Cindy, “I knew the clean-up was gonna be a bear.”

Ellie said, “Aura told us there were a hundred or so from Ely, and implied that some of them have been killed.”

“Yup,” said Greg. “We don't have a body count yet, but the most recent visual suggests only a couple dozen active shooters.”

“Somewhere between seventeen and thirty-one,” Cindy added. “Kinda hard to tell how many are the same guy twice.”

“And our side?”

Ellie could hear Lex swallow.

“Let's just say,” said Greg, “it's a good thing dinosaurs are hard to kill.”

“And whooee, do they hate gettin' shot!” Cindy added. “The mess over on the highway looks like something' out of one of them 'Red Asphalt' videos they used to show high school kids.”

Ellie flinched. 

“Haakon?” Lex asked, her voice wavering.

“Took a bullet,” said Greg.

“But he'll be fine,” Cindy added hastily. “Flesh wound to the shoulder. Would have taken one to the leg, too, 'cept it's the one ain't there. Lordy, does that guy know how to bellyache!”

A shot rang out, the bullet taking a nearby chunk of concrete with it.

“How many daggum bullets do those guys have anyway?” Greg growled.

“How long have they been in there?” Ellie asked.

“All night.”

“And no one tried to sneak up?”

“Of course we did,” Cindy snorted. “They have night-vision goggles. So now it's a siege.”

“Where's Alan?”

“Over at Whispering Elms. Don't worry, he's fine. Mad as hell about the whole thing, mind you. And worried about you, for all that he's said over and over that you can look out for yourself.”

Ellie shrugged. “He's right about that much.”

“Of course. He's still worried. Mostly, I figure it's because he loves you.”

Ellie smiled briefly. “And the others?”

“Five dead, thirteen wounded, three of them badly.”

Greg said, “Megan needs to get her butt over there pronto. Even if she has to drag that Aura girl by her hair.”

“I'll do it,” said Lex.

Ellie nodded. “Keep your eyes peeled for the other ones.”

“Got it!” Lex whirled Sundancer around and thumped back toward the road. Two gunshots followed her.

Greg squeezed off a trio of rounds at the Visitor Center.

Ellie cringed. “How long do you think we have to wait them out?”

“No idea. Near as we can tell, they have an awful lot of ammo. Way more than we do. And even if we can keep 'em pinned 'till nighfall, there's nothin' keepin' 'em from slippin' away after that. We only have the three pair of night-vision goggles ourselves, an' two of 'em are with the others over at Elms.”

“Which puts those two buildings between our third pair and their escape.”

Greg said, “And ain't nothing but sagebrush on the other side, so we don't really have it covered.”

“We put Julie up in one of the Ranger houses across the way with a pair of binoculars,” said Cindy, “but she's limited.”

“Word is, we're this close to implementing Plan C-Four.”

Ellie exhaled through her nose. “Megan said not to burn it down.”

“We're running out of options. Unless you can think of a way to get those idiots to surrender, they're going to sneak off in the middle of the night.”

“Across miles of desert? On foot?”

“Most of those guys were in the Nevada State Pen,” said Greg. “Dad always said there were two kinds of criminals. The mind-numbingly stupid, and guys with a busted conscience. And sometimes the two overlap.”

Ellie frowned. “I'll have to respectfully disagree.”

“Well,” said Cindy pensively, “if he's wrong, it ain't completely. I'd add desperation to that list.”

“Point is,” said Greg, “that some of the guys who attacked us really are stupid enough to try to walk across a desert.”

“Uh,” said Ellie, “might I point out that _we_ have been walking across a desert?”

“We're different!” Greg protested.

“The Pony Express used to cross the desert, too.”

“Okay, okay. They still won't get far.”

Ellie looked up at the mid-morning sun, then out across the sagebrush. “Can we keep these guys pinned down until, say, a couple of hours before sunset?”

“Sure. Why?”

“I have an idea.”

* * *

Ellie scooted around the base of another clump of sagebrush. That made another six inches. She risked a slow peek above the little grey leaves.

Orange-tinged sunlight glared off the window glass, the sheet of solar panels, the half-dozen vehicles in the parking lot, and the brushed steel ball at the tip of the bare flagpole. Beyond that towered the growing column of smoke bent toward her, sucked by the same wind that brought her the foul odors of violent death, unwashed human, and haphazard sanitation. Only the silvery tips of sagebrush moved.

Another gunshot rattled the silence. Several more, and a string of particularly colorful expletives bellowed through a throat already strained by too much yelling and screaming, followed it.

Ellie drew another deep breath and let it back out. “Damn adrenaline,” she muttered under her breath.

She remembered being grateful for that particular adaptation during labor with Alicia. And she supposed the marathon of childbirth was exactly why women had developed slow adrenaline processing in the first place. The downside was that it turned her into a bundle of nerves that was sure to leave her still amped up even after crawling through the hundred more yards of sagebrush that still lay between her and the building.

She glanced toward where Greg, cool as a cucumber, lay concealed several paces away, then toward where Cindy, as teeth-grittingly nervous as herself, lay similarly concealed in the other direction, a partially-camouflaged Maihee beside her.

The time continued to stretch along with her shadow. By the time she reached the sparse patch of brush surrounding the building, her arms burned like afternoon asphalt and felt like jelly.

Not forty yards away stood the facility's employee entrance. On either side of a paved area, a head-high plank fence sheltered an employee break area with a single small tree off to its left. Behind that glinted the glass of a small window partially obscured by the tree's tattered foliage. A recess sheltered the building's back door. At the edge of the parking lot sat a white Suburban parked tail-in.

Beside the tree stood a guy in forest camo. Sunlight glinted off the rifle he held pointed casually toward the ground. A light cloud of cigarette smoke ballooned briefly into the air and shredded in the evening breeze.

Ellie glanced around at the sun. It hung two diameters above another thunderhead looming over the mountains. Which meant she had maybe another twenty minutes of sun cover.

Ellie slowly unlimbered her crossbow and arhythmically cocked it, flinching each time the mechanism clicked. She slid a bolt home and levered herself onto her elbows.

She breathed several times, gaging the wind as she did. She'd shot the Dead at even greater distance and with a high degree of accuracy. On the other hand, the Dead didn't shoot back at you if you missed. Their buddies didn't shoot back at you either. And she always knew exactly what happened to anyone caught by the Dead.

The living were always another matter, and that always complicated things.

She eased her finger onto the trigger. Breathe in...breathe out...in...out...in...out...hold...and..._TUNG!_

The man's head whipped back. The crack of metal on bone met her ears a moment later. The body toppled backward and vanished from sight.

Ellie fought down a twinge of nausea, gathered her legs beneath her, and pushed off. One foot slid in the loose dirt and she half-tripped over an unseen root. Her companions burst from their own places. Moments later, several cracks of gunfire shattered what remained of the early evening calm.

She sprinted across the ground, then the pavement, and slammed her body against the building's wall. Greg, Cindy, and Maihee slid in beside her.

“Nice shot,” said Greg.

Ellie nodded. “But now,” she said as she worked the cocking mechanism, “they know we're here.”

“There is that,” said Cindy. She looked at the dead man on the floor. The already-congealing pool of blood made a halo around a buzz-cut furze of blond stubble. “You ever wonder who the Dead used to be?” she asked quietly.

“All the time.”

“Well,” Greg said pensively, “whoever he was, he won't be needing his weapons.” He knelt down and began pulling objects out of pockets and holsters.

Thirty seconds later, he'd added three knives, a machete, four hand grenades, a Glock, an AR-15, and several dozen rounds of ammo for each.

“Normally,” said Ellie, “I'd say we're not laying siege to the place, but...”

Greg chuckled. “Have fun storming the castle?”

“For certain values of fun,” Cindy said.

Ellie flattened herself against the outer wall, spent crossbow pointed groundward. She worked the cocking mechanism and slid another bolt home.

“Hey, Bert!” said a man from inside. “Bert!” A string of half-mumbled profanity followed.

Ellie set her jaw. She exchanged a glance with Cindy and nodded. Both women raised their weapons.

Moments later, a man stepped out. His head swiveled from one figure to the next, taking in the scene in moments. He opened his mouth, then froze as his attention fixed on the barrel of Cindy's pistol.

“You speak,” said Cindy quietly, “you die.”

Maihee growled. “Heel,” Cindy said. The growl faded.

“She ain't kiddin',” said Greg. “Drop your weapon.” He leveled the AR at the guy.

“Do it now,” said Ellie.

“Don't make us say it again.”

The man mouthed, “You won't get away with this, bitches.”

“Shut the sex up,” said Cindy.

Ellie snorted a barely-restrained laugh.

“Wha...” the man began.

“I said,” Cindy snarled, “shut _up_.”

He craned his head around, “Hey, Bob!” he yelled.

Cindy squeezed the trigger. The man's head snapped back. He toppled aside and collapsed onto the bits of his own brain and bone scattered on the pavers.

Ellie wiggled a finger in her ear. “I'm glad you're on my side,” she said. “But next time, not so close.”

Cindy shrugged.

Footsteps sounded on the other side of the fence, their shadows flickering through the gaps between the boards. A moment later, two men rounded the end. They raised a pair of automatic rifles. “Hey!” one guy said.

Ellie placed a bolt through his neck. He dropped his weapon, and groped at the vanes before collapsing with a gurgle. Greg put three holes through the other guy's chest.

“So much for stealth,” said Cindy.

“I'm surprised it lasted this long,” said Ellie.

Cindy shrugged. “We're that good.”

“Or they're that stupid.”

“Or both.”

Ellie nodded. “Sure.” Then, “How many guys did you say were here?”

“A couple dozen.”

Ellie grunted.

“Okay, assholes,” said a man from inside the building, “we know you're out there! So hows about you just surrender now, and we take it easy on you?”

“Bite me!” Cindy yelled.

“Oh, I'm gonna, you can bet on that! And this being Nevada and all...”

“Shut up, stupid!” She turned to Ellie. “Too much?” she said quietly.

“The idea's to get them out here, right?”

An object sailed out the door, trailing a thin line of smoke, hit the ground, bounced twice, and lay there hissing.

Cindy swore.

Ellie swept out her sword, bounded two paces, and swatted the object back through the door. A moment later, it exploded. A scream rose, then tapered off just as quickly, followed by some colorful language.

Cindy looked at her with wide eyes. “Impressive,” she said breathlessly.

“I played tennis in high school.”

“Well, ya ain't lost it.” She looked toward the door. “Who the hell packs dynamite?”

“Those guys, apparently.”

Cindy snorted. “Your friends on the hill are gonna be pissed if we set this place on fire.”

“Okay, buttheads,” Ellie yelled, “we know you're in there! So how about you surrender now and we'll make sure you die quickly?”

Cindy chuckled. “That might have been too much.”

“We'll see.”

One of the men inside yelled a particularly grating obscenity.

“You first!” Ellie yelled back.

“And,” Cindy added, “we'll let your buddies watch!”

“Oo,” said Ellie, “that was...harsh.”

Cindy grinned.

More cussing floated out of the building. Boots thudded on a tile floor.

“Uh-oh,” said Ellie. “I think we're about to have company.”

She cocked her crossbow and slid a bolt home.

“We could really use some tear gas about now,” said Cindy. She picked up a dead man's automatic weapon, checked the action, and unloaded it into the building. Screams and shouts followed.

Something exploded inside. Brief gunfire followed. Something shattered.

Ellie and Cindy looked at each other. “That sounded like a grenade,” said Cindy.

More shouting.

“I smell smoke,” said Ellie.

Somewhere around the corner, a pair of single-stroke engines fired up, revved, then receded into the distance.

“Okay, we're coming out!” someone yelled from inside.

The two women looked at each other.

“Unarmed!” someone else added.

“Do it slowly!” Ellie said.

“And hands where we can see 'em!” Cindy added.

A man in camo came out, hands thrust skyward. Another followed, then another. Ellie and Cindy backed up slowly, weapons trained on them.

“What the hell is that!?” one of the guys said.

“Your death, if you don't respect her,” said Cindy.

Maihee growled briefly, and snorted.

“Into the parking lot,” said Ellie. She glanced over her shoulder, then back at the men half-staggering out of the dark interior. Smoke began to drift out after them.

“Get your butts on the ground!” Cindy ordered. “Hands behind your heads!”

Minutes later, fourteen men lay face-down on the still-uncomfortably-warm asphalt. Only half of them looked the hardened criminal type.

“You're really gonna kill us quickly?” one said.

“Oh,” said Cindy, “I can name a few of our people who're gonna wanna rip yer balls off an' stuff 'em in yer mouth.”

“You guys came barging in here, shooting up the place, bent on making trouble,” said Ellie. “But I think we'll just arrest you morons and sort it out with the locals.”

* * *

An hour later, Ellie sat on a bench in the middle of the Whispering Elms RV Park. The Ely men sat on the gravel, their hands bound behind them. A semicircle of the locals stood nearby, rifles held casually pointed toward the ground.

The sounds of people in pain and sorrow floated on the breeze from elsewhere in the park.

Between the trees and buildings shone the glow of the Visitor Center burning.

Alan stood with his hands on his hips. “Where do I start with you?” he demanded.

“Hey, man,” said a young guy who couldn't have been more than nineteen, “we're sorry.”

“Sorry? You guys killed a dozen of ours, injured at least twice that many more, not to mention terrorizing the good people of this community for the last three years. And that's on top of whatever you've been doing to Ely. Sorry doesn't even begin to cover it.

“Every single one of us wants to kill you. Some of us want to do it slowly, and a few of those want to do it _very_ slowly. But that's not going to solve anything, is it?

“Now, since we're the ones who took you prisoner, we make the rules. So, as head of this outfit, I'm going to give each of you idiots a choice. First option, we can tie you up where Highway Fifty crosses the Utah border, and let the Dead find you.”

“No, man. Not that. Anything but...”

“I'm not finished,” Alan snapped. “Second option, we can drag you to the road, untie you, and let you run. Before you get too excited, I'll have you know that several of our animals have just been itching for something, or someone, to chase. I can guarantee that they'll want to play with their food. The allosaurs are particularly fond of playing fetch.

“Third option, you can start repaying us and the people of Baker with your sweat. You'll start by cleaning up the Visitor Center...”

“But it's on fire!” another guy protested.

One of the Bakerites stepped forward and kicked him. “Shut up,” she snarled.

“...and re-building it,” Alan continued, “to their specifications. You'll do exactly what they tell you do to, when and how they tell you to do it. When they say jump, you'll ask how high, and you'll ask it on your way down. You'll do whatever else they want you to do for however long they want you to do it. And you're done when they say you're done.”

“Joe'll be back,” said one of the guys, a big neo-Nazi-looking man.

“You mean one of your pals on the motorcycles?” Alan chuckled.

The guy glared at him.

“Assuming he does, and assuming he brings back more of your buddies, what do you think they'll do to the lot of you for your failure?”

More glaring.

From the road came the distinctive thumping of a large bipedal animal and the moaning of a living human in pain. Skywalker thumped into the light. A man in camo hung from his jaws.

“I caught one!” said Tim triumphantly.

“Joe, I presume?” said Alan.

“Skywalker,” said Tim, “drop it.”

The allosaur opened his jaws. Joe fell to the ground and groaned.

“Oh,” said Tim, “and he shot at me.” He grinned. “I'm going to have a nice battle scar.”

Alan inclined his head to Tim.

“But,” Tim continued, “I think Skywalker punished him enough. For now.”

“You'd better go see Megan.”

“It's not bad. It stopped bleeding.”

“Better do it anyway,” said Ellie.

Tim sighed and nudged Skywalker into a walk further into the park.

“What are you gonna do with him?” the big man asked.

“That's up to him,” said Alan. “It's up to each one of you. You're each free to take our deal, or take your chances.”

“How long can we think it over?” the young man asked.

“You don't. You'll choose right now. We have just enough daylight to haul your carcasses over to the highway, or to have one of our animals run you down. The Bakerites are running out of patience, and we have things to do that you imbeciles interrupted, plus a whole lot more, with a lot fewer hands to do it all. And it's all _your_ fault. Do I make myself clear?”

A few of the guys muttered something.

“I can't hear you!” Alan barked.

“Yeah, okay,” a couple of the guys said.

Lex stepped over and kicked neo-Nazi guy in the head. “He asked you a question, douche-bag!”

“Okay, fine,” the guy growled.

“What's it going to be?” Alan continued. “Door Number one, Door Number Two, or Door Number Three? You first.” He nodded at the first guy, a middle-aged black man.

“Door Three,” he said without hesitation.

“And you?” Alan said to the young guy.

“Door Three.”

Every one of them chose Door Three. Ellie was pretty sure it was to avoid being summarily executed. And she didn't trust any of them any further than she could throw them.

“Now,” Alan continued, “do any of you have anything to say for yourselves?”

Neo-Nazi spewed some particularly improbable profanity.

“That's anatomically impossible,” said Alan, “but if you want to try, we can sell tickets and split the proceeds sixty-forty.”

The guy spat at Alan and missed.

Lex kicked him in the side. “You will show some respect, dick-weed,” she said.

Alan sighed through his nose in a way that probably meant something like, “Young lady, you and I are going to have a conversation you will not enjoy.”

“Anyone else?” he asked.

“They made me do it,” said a guy who looked to be in his twenties.

“How's that?”

“They're holding my wife and daughter. Threatened to...” He looked away.

“Okay,” said Alan, “we'll sort out the rest in the morning. They're all yours,” he said to the Bakerites. “The rest of you not on watch, get some sleep if you can. It's been a long day.”

* * *

Ellie looked up at the milky swath of stars strewn across the sky. She felt Alan wrap his arms around her. She leaned against him and shivered slightly.

“There's always that one,” she said.

Alan nodded. “Which is why I'm always the one to deliver the ultimatum.”

She nodded. “I know.” She took a deep breath, held it, then let it back out.

“That was a good idea, by the way. Sneaking in with the sun at your back.”

“It had the virtue of not having been tried.”

“It was brilliant, and you know it.”

“It was a team effort.”

“I'll grant you that.”

Ellie groaned. Alan chuckled.

“You still haven't asked about the casualty report,” Alan said.

“I'm almost afraid to. I overheard enough. But...” She winced. “...I suppose I have to. It's my job. But can it wait for morning?”

Alan nodded. “Don't see why not.”

“Thanks.” Then, “Do you think that guy was right about his wife and daughter?”

Alan sighed. “Ely was taken over by convicts. So, sure, it's plausible. And this being Nevada, I'd bet real money on it having happened. Whether it's that guy's wife and kid? No idea.”

“The kids want to go after them.”

Alan grunted. “Of course they do. Them and their Knights of Thunder. Say what you want about them making it real, but if they charge in with guns blazing...”

“This is all hurting my brain right now. I'm too tired for this. And I should probably bathe. It's been a long day.”

“No, honey, it's been longer.”

* * *

Ellie leaned against a post and shifted Alicia to her other arm. She tried not to think about how quickly the time was going to fly by. About how before the first snows of next winter flew, Alicia was probably going to be taking her first steps. About how she and Alan were going to miss so much just by blinking. About how they would one day ask where all the time had gone. Naturally, she thought about it anyway.

She tried distracting herself by watching Lex progress through a round of katas, the fourth set that morning. She had begun with sword, and had gone on to knife, then axe, and now spear. One could almost overlook the fact that she'd given birth barely a month before, on an abnormally cold September morning in the middle of the season's first short-lived blizzard.

At length, Lex paused and leaned on the length of stout dowel doubling as a spear, breathing hard.

“Damn,” she panted, “it's like learning how to do that all over again. This kind of sucks.”

Ellie raised an eyebrow.

“Well,” Lex added, “not as much as labor. At least that was one hell of an abs workout!”

Ellie chuckled.

“What?”

“Spoken like a true knight.”

Lex grinned. “You think so?”

Ellie nodded.

“Don't much feel like one at the moment.”

“But you're doing so well.”

“Like I said, it's like having to learn to do this all over again. My stance is wider than it was the first time around. My boobs are heavier. And I'm still carrying a lot more of...well, a lot more.” She patted her belly and the paunch left over from her deflated baby bulge. “If this doesn't go away, I'm going to scream.”

“At your age, yeah, it probably will. Most of it, anyway.”

“Most?”

Ellie effected her best Southern drawl. “You done have a baby, Miss Scarlett. You ain't never gonna be no seventeen inches again.”

Lex hrmphed. “Very funny.”

Ellie shrugged. “But very true.”

Lex groaned. “I know, I know. And I know I swore I wasn't going to let being a mom slow me down. It's just...I don't know.”

“You were used to how you were. You'd figured out how to be in your own skin. And you'd just finished adapting to the aftermath of puberty when motherhood hit. And now you're wondering how to out-stubborn yourself. Am I close?”

Lex nodded. “Yeah, I think that's pretty much it.”

Ellie walked over and gave Lex a hug. “We're all in this together, right?”

Lex nodded. “Still, you're not one of the Knights of Thunder.”

“Let me ask you this. How much do you want to be a badass mom?”

Lex grinned.

“Then take it!”

* * *

Ellie wrenched a spear from the skull of a man in a tattered business suit. She looked over to where Lex did the same to what had been a young woman in a jogging suit. Her eye slid over the sagebrush and two dozen lumpy forms. Scraps of unevenly sun-bleached cloth and the rangy hair of a deer, a coyote, two sheep, and some suburbanite’s Rottweiler quivered in the mid-April breeze.

Lex thumped over on Sundancer, and looked down at Jake. “They’re stirring,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said absently. He looked off in the general direction of Salt Lake City and exhaled a cloudy breath into the cool morning air. He grounded the butt of a well-used spear made from a hammered-out garden hoe. “Can we outrun ‘em?”

“Depends,” said Ellie, “on how soon the snow melts out on the pass.”

Jake shook his head slowly. “Not soon enough, then. You think you and your Knights of Thunder can hold ‘em off that long?”

“Depends on the same thing.”

“Of course we can,” Lex said.

Ellie exchanged a glance with Lex and let the rest go unsaid. A pile of charred bone amid a broad patch of scorched earth twenty yards east of the highway testified to the risk of staying even one more season so close to Salt Lake City and its seemingly inexhaustible supply of the Dead of several species.

Megan exhaled heavily. “Damn. Two hundred miles of desert and mountains and they still show up!”

“They can cover that in a week,” said Tim.

“I know, I know. And they don't drink, rest, or get heatstroke.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Great Basin National Park, one of America's least-visited parks, is a great place to go! May or early June are, in my opinion, the best times to visit. It's not terribly hot yet, most of the snow is long-gone, and lots of wildflowers are in bloom!  
https://www.nps.gov/grba/index.htm


	14. Do-You-Think-He-Saurus?

Ellie gazed across a sage-covered crest at the northern end of the Toquima Range where Hickison Summit separated it from the southern end of the Simpson Park Mountains. On the other side of US-50, a brown BLM sign marked the well-traveled gravel road to the Hickison Petroglyph Recreation Area.

The highway sloped gradually eastward into the Monitor Valley. Westward, the road rose through the gap and thence across the northern end of the Big Smoky Valley.

Far above, a jagged ridge-line scraped an azure sky. Pinon pines and junipers gave way to sagebrush, which yielded to creosote scrub, which in turn vanished at the edge of a playa. White sego lilies lightly peppered the ground. Blobs of white phlox, yellow wild buckwheat, orange mallow, yellow balsamroot, lemony prickly pear, and purple lupine splashed the slope with color.

The shimmer of an early June mirage melded with the remains of a water-filled playa left glass-smooth by the still mid-morning air. Beside it, and dwarfed by a half-mile of distance, the rest of the caravan waited on a gravel road.

In the middle distance, US 50 spilled as a ribbon of grey-black from a tongue of the Toquima Range and cut straight across the Monitor Valley. A clutch of small figures crept almost imperceptibly along it. Ellie half-reluctantly raised her binoculars.

Under magnification, a convoy of perhaps half a dozen vehicles careened along the highway. She briefly pondered on how her definition of 'careen' had changed. Even without magnification, she perceived the frantic pace of the people and animals. A staccato clopping sound floated across the still air.

Sally tore up another clump of sagebrush and chewed noisily.

Ellie lowered the binoculars and blew air out between her lips. “Well, that can't be good,” she said.

“Is that,” Lex asked from several paces away, “a 'let's go ask if they need a drink' not good, or a 'charge in with teeth bared and weapons hot' not good?”

“I count six wagons, two of them Conestogas or prairie schooners...I have trouble keeping them straight. The others are modern utility trailers, all piled with the usual assortment of stuff. They're hooked to mules and oxen. A dozen mounted outriders. All the equines are lathered. Those oxen don't look too good either. A few camels, all at a conspicuous distance from the horses. A few bicycles. Some of the mounts are being ridden double.”

Lex hrmphed. “There aren't too many reasons to push animals that hard.”

Ellie shook her head. “And the people keep looking over their shoulders. They're running from something, I think. Something that moves faster than the Dead.”

“They're running in the wrong direction,” said Tim.

“You're not wrong. Maybe they just don't know it.”

“Or maybe,” said Lex, “the other directions were worse.”

“That's probably true, too.”

“What do you think,” said Tim, “should we check it out?”

“After what happened the last time we did that?” said Lex.

Tim exhaled heavily. “How come people always freak out when they see us?”

“Uh,” said Lex, “because we're the Knights of Thunder?”

“There is that.” He laughed. “And it's funny as hell!”

“Hell's not funny.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do and it's not.”

“Wait, what?”

Ellie looked back southeastward toward where the rest of the caravan waited on one of the many nameless dirt roads that cut across the vast open spaces of central Nevada, and the hump of Summit Mountain in the middle distance.

“Okay, let's do it,” said Ellie. She toggled her walkie and called it in.

“Roger that,” said Alan, an unspoken 'be careful' clear in his voice.

The four fell into their long-practiced single-file formation, Tim in the lead, and Ellie bringing up the rear, Samantha between them. They set off at a gentle lope, making a descending traverse northeastward along the ridgeline as it dove into the basin. Tim adjusted course northward on an intercept course for the center of the column.

All held their weapons in rest position, Ellie's crossbow pointed skyward, and Tim and Lex with bows relaxed and pointed down. At the base of the hill, and barely two hundred yards from the road, they shifted formation from a column into a line.

They'd closed to within a hundred yards before Ellie saw any sign that they'd been noticed. Horses whinnied. A woman screamed.

Lex sighed audibly.

Tim said, “Why do they always scream?”

“Now you sound like a super-villain.”

“I do not.”

“You, six thirty. You, six forty-five. Bring a friend.”

“So now I’m the Sheriff of Nottingham?”

Lex just laughed.

“Are they gonna try to shoot us?” Samantha asked.

“Remember what happened last time someone did that?” Ellie asked.

“I don’t wanna think about it.”

Tim said, “You asked.”

“It was re-torical.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” said Ellie.

They stopped several paces from the road’s verge. Sally and Moonshine immediately went to work on the nearest clump of sagebrush.

“Ahoy, the caravan!” Lex called.

Ellie caught a chorus of “What the hell” and the like bounce back and forth among the several dozen people crowding the wagons or astride beast and bicycle.

She took the opportunity to take mental notes. Flecks of moisture ran down their equines’ hides. While not blown per se, they’d clearly been ridden hard and long without adequate water. The oxen hung their heads, breathing heavily around lolling tongues. Only a trio of Bactrian camels appeared none the worse for wear.

Sunburned and dirt-streaked faces peered at them with wide eyes, those not hidden behind sunglasses. Several of the riders pointed pistols or rifles at one or the other of the dinos. Tim and Lex raised their bows and pulled a half-draw. Ellie and Samantha leveled their crossbows.

“What seems to be the trouble?” Lex asked.

“Who says there’s trouble?” responded one of the equestrians, a man perhaps in his mid-thirties, his apparent age plausibly amplified by years of hard living since the Thanatocene or possibly before that.

“You’re fleeing someone or something. Your equines and oxen are in bad shape. You haven’t had the time to pace them or care for them properly.”

Or, Ellie added to herself, they don’t know any better. Which, she had to admit, would have been a lot more likely years before.

“That, and Sundancer here can smell your fear.”

The man exchanged glances with a woman probably his own age. She said, “You’re riding...what the hell is that, anyway?”

“She’s an Allosaurus fragilus,” said Lex.

The man said, “Ain’t that a dinosaur?”

Tim said, “Give the man a cigar.”

Ellie cleared her throat audibly. Tim exhaled in response to the nonverbal rebuke.

“Apologies,” he added.

_Kids_, Ellie thought. _A lot more grown up than they would have been going to some prep school, certainly. But despite their Knights of Thunder, and Alexis being a mom, they’re still more kids than not._

“They won’t hurt you,” said Lex, “unless you threaten them.”

“Which means,” added Tim, “threatening us.”

Ellie added, “They’re a little temperamental.”

“So’s Aunt Maye’s mule.”

“The mule won’t toast you.”

“Toast me?”

“Have you heard of the bombardier beetle?”

“Yeah.”

“Similar idea.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So,” said Lex, “what are you running from, how far behind you is it, and where do you plan to run to?”

“Tell her,” said the woman.

The man exhaled heavily. “Calls himself Billy the Kid. No such thing, if you ask me. Bad sort. Last we saw, he was half a day’s ride behind. We’re making for Ely.”

“We’d advise against that,” said Lex.

“Would you, now?”

“Nothing there but convicts and the Dead.”

“The moving kind?”

“All kinds,” said Tim.

Ellie’s walkie squawked. “Hold that thought,” she said, and answered.

Alan’s voice said, “Fodurgd tua'r gorllewin. Harleyau a codiau. Awgrymu dychwelid i seilio, over.” We’ve got a west-bound motorcade. Several Harleys and pick-ups. Suggest return to base.

“What the hell...”

Ellie said into the walkie, “Wrth gefyn, over.” Stand by. Then to the man, “What do you know about the current state of Ely?”

“Only that it’s a living town.”

Lex said, “You know the Nevada State Pen was there, right?”

“Somewhere outside town, but yeah.”

“They got out,” said Tim.

“And now,” said Lex, “they run the place.”

The man cursed.

“Bullcrap,” said the woman.

“Not from us,” said Lex.

“We had run-in with some of them last fall, and a couple of times over winter and again in the spring,” said Ellie.

“And when we got done with them,” said Tim, “the a-holes running the show in Ely were seriously short on manpower.”

“And the herds,” said Samantha.

Ellie said into the walkie, “Negyddol. Carafan yn llawn ffoaduriad.” That’s a negative. This caravan is full of refugees.

Alan said, “Eu cael oddi ar y ffordd. Ni'n dod, over.” Get them off the road. We’re on the way.

“Cynabod, over.” She nodded to Lex.

“Right,” said Lex, “if you want to live, take that road.” She pointed across the highway to a gravel road that turned into dirt at a cattle crossing before continuing out of sight due north.

“But they’ll all chase us!”

“Our people are in a holding pattern on the other side of that ridge.” She pointed at the ridge behind them. “They’ll be here in twenty minutes. The motors we just spotted, thirty, forty tops.”

“If we time this right,” said Ellie, “those guys will run into this Billy the Kid, and they’ll fight each other. Normally, we’d insist you rest your animals, but that will have to wait.”

“How do we know we can trust you?” the woman asked.

“You don’t.”

Tim said, “But you don’t have much of a choice, either.”

Samantha added, “But if you have doggies, you gotta keep 'em away from the dinos. They don't like each other.”

“Just a minute,” the man said. A hushed conversation ensued between him, the woman, and two others. At length, he turned back and said, “Okay. But if you’re wrong...” He left off and shouted commands.

His people made a few token protests, but complied. The animals turned around and plodded back the dozen or so yards to the indicated unsigned road junction. Dust rose from hooves, feet, and wheels, and drifted away on a rising breeze. Minutes later, the first of their own emerged onto the highway a couple hundred yards to the east. A pair of Knights stood guard while the ceratopsians lumbered their way up the road, the trikes and strikes slowly swinging their frilled heads back and forth. The anks followed, then the herds of smaller ceratopsians and the others.

Ellie smiled. After all these years, that sight never failed to move her. She and the kids stood guard while the dinos turned onto the road following the refugees. A few minutes later, Alan rode up.

“Good thing this road was Plan B,” he said.

Ellie sighed. “I know, I know. But if these people have something to hide, I’m not sensing it.”

“The Contact Procedure is going to be a pain in the butt.”

“Yup,” was all Ellie could say. Doubly so if they couldn’t find water, which didn’t look terribly likely. “Maybe one of them knows of a water source up there.” She nodded northward toward the mountains that marched away into the distance to converge on the ones bounding the Monarch Valley to the northeast.

The last of the caravan turned onto the road with no sign of either marauder band. The road eventually veered eastward following the edge of the valley floor before the twinkling sun on chrome and glass became visible on the highway.

Ellie glanced ahead to where more than a hundred pairs of feet kicked up the dust that drifted westward with the upwelling warm air rising off the valley floor toward the relatively cooler mountains above.

Even on a road barely a lane and a half wide, a fully-grown parasaur could easily forge its own passing lane. Which Sally had done on multiple occasions.

She looked back toward the road.

“They’re gonna catch us, aren’t they?” Samantha asked.

“Only if they chase us.”

“But they’re gonna chase us, huh?”

“Not if they don’t know we’re here.”

“But they’re gonna see us!”

“Not if the dust blends into the hills,” said Ellie.

Samantha hrmphed emphatically. The girl had a point. Either caravan by itself raised enough dust to choke an ankylosaur. Between them, they accomplished a credible imitation of a wildfire. That was one reason they’d kept to paved roads as much as possible over the years.

“If they’re not looking for us,” Ellie said, “and if their lookouts don’t notice, and if they don’t care.”

“That’s a lotta ifs,” Samantha said.

Ellie chuckled. “You sound like Alan.”

“But he’d say that, huh?”

Ellie craned her head around at the sound of a voluminous sneeze. Alan rode up, Asfaloth tossing his head in his typical post-sneeze idiom.

“Any sign of pursuit?” Alan asked, his voice slightly muffled behind his bandana.

“Not yet,” said Ellie. “It’ll depend on how well all this dust blends into the hills.”

“And if they’re looking for us, if their lookouts don’t notice, and if they care.”

“See?” said Samantha.

Alan cocked his head quizzically. “Let me guess,” he said, “you said I’d say that, right?”

Samantha nodded. “Yup!”

“I suppose you’ve spent enough time listing to me ramble, haven’t you?”

Samantha cocked her head, much of the rest of her body language suppressed by the way she sat her para. But her attempt at her sassy stance signaled Moonshine to shift sideways.

“Well, duh,” said Samantha. “You only sorta adopted me.”

Ellie cleared her throat.

“Sorry,” said Samantha.

Alan nodded. “You can do the punishment burpees later.”

Samantha groaned.

Ellie caught Alan’s wink and returned it.

“I called a general halt,” said Alan.

Ellie looked past him to where human and beast slowed and shifted nervously.

“But the bad guys’ll catch us!” Samantha protested.

“If they follow on motor vehicles…?” Ellie prompted.

The girl sighed. “They’ll catch us anyway.”

“Not necessarily,” said Alan.

* * *

“Dibs on the shade!”

“I saw it first!”

“But I called dibs!”

“Last one there's a rotten egg!”

“Hold on, there, squirts!” Alan ordered. “We have a procedure!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!”

“You're all doing burpees!” Alan called.

Ellie shot him a smirk.

“What?” he said.

“Oh, nothing, nothing.” Ellie pulled Sally into the shade of a broad tree, Alan right beside her.

Its shade and that of four others and a single-story farm house spilled across what had once been part lawn, and part flower garden.

One by one, man and beast crowded out of the blazing mid-afternoon sun.

“Aunt May?” one of the Austinites called out. He half-trotted to the front door and pushed.

“Jethro, wait,” said Alan.

The door swung easily inward. Jethro nudged it open. “Aunt May?”

“Alan?” Beth called from beside the house. “No water!” She held up the end of a green garden hose.

“Greg,” said Ellie, “see if there's a well and see if we can get power to it.”

“On it!” said Greg.

Ellie looked out into the glare at the line of trailers standing angled on the gravel road that led along the edge of the property. Beyond it lay a narrow field of yellowing grass. From there, the terrain sloped gradually up to meet a set of ruddy hills peppered with pines.

“May?” came Jethro's half-muffled call. A scream sounded inside the house. All heads swiveled in that direction. Moments later, Jethro emerged, stumbled across the shaggy no-longer-lawn, and threw up at the edge of the gravel.

Ellie and Alan looked at each other.

Lex and Tim thumped around the edge of an outbuilding a few dozen yards away and pulled into the shade.

“It's clear,” Tim said.

“Uh-oh,” said Lex.

Greg trotted around the corner. “I have good news, not-so-good news, and...geez, what's with him?” He nodded at the guy still leaning over the gravel.

“I think,” said Lex, “he found Aunt May.”

Greg shook his head. “I'm sorry man. My condolences.”

“Leave him to his grief for a minute,” said Alan. “You were saying?”

“Oh, right. I found a well. It's one of them old-school hand-pump things. Guess no one bothered to cap it when they drilled the new one. The not-so-good news is that it's in full sun and a bit rusted. But it works.”

Alan nodded. He twisted around and said, mainly for the benefit of the Austinites, “Right! Three swallows each, for starters. Children and those with visible heatstroke first. Then see to your animals.”

People scattered like water across a hot griddle, a remarkable feat in the mid-June heat.

Alan dismounted and stood beside Ellie. He tipped his helm back and half-ran a hand through sweat-soaked hair. “It’s a miracle they’ve made it this far,” he said.

Ellie pulled her helm off and tried to shake out her hair. She succeeded only in smacking herself in the face with the wind-dried end of an otherwise-wet ponytail. She hung her helm on a lanyard fixed to Sally’s tack and said, “I’m surprised they only lost two horses and a mule.” The oft-inferred ‘We’ve seen a lot worse’ went unsaid between them.

“I’ll be surprised if that bay gelding makes it,” said Alan.

Elle sighed through her nose. “They’re not going to be happy about that.”

“They’re already not happy about it. At least the carnies got fed.”

Ellie snorted. “They’re even less happy about that. That little girl...Alice, I think her name is...hasn’t stopped crying.”

Alan shook his head. “What is it about girls and horses?”

Ellie shrugged, the motion suppressed by the leather plates guarding her upper body. “They don’t even have to be mammalian,” she said, patting Sally for effect.

A couple dozen yards away, a beagle started barking, joined by a corgi, a pit-bull, and a dachsund. Brookie snarled in reply and Sundancer growled.

“The real miracle,” Alan said, making no effort to keep the eye-roll out of his voice, “will be keeping the dinos and dogs apart.”

Ellie tipped her head back and groaned. “If I had a nickel for every time we had trouble with someone's dog...” She let the rest go unspoken.

Ellie looked around at the clatter of cyclists by the house, some leaning their rides on kickstands, others against the brickwork, all pulling empty or near-empty bottles from wire holders mounted to frames. Some people sat in the shade, while others pelted around the house on Greg’s heels, various containers in-hand. For the next half-hour, the squeal of half-rusted metal-on-metal assaulted everyone’s ears.

An hour after that, Ellie leaned against a wall and shifted Alicia to her other breast. “You’re getting big, squirt,” she muttered.

On a freshly-washed dining table, several heavy objects held a map of Nevada down against a stiff, hot breeze blowing through the extended kitchen. Through a screen door and past an expansive deck, several of the Austinites huddled around a fresh grave.

Drying leather armor and quilted padding occupied every inch of the deck's two-by-four railing and much of the adjacent horizontal surface.

Ellie sighed through her nose and returned her attention to the meeting.

“Status reports,” she said.

Megan began. “The good news, is that we only have a dozen cases of heatstroke, most of them mild. I think we should all rest up here for a couple of days. The bad news is that the pump well ran dry already. We'll need another water source in two days.”

Lex said, “The newbies lost another horse. But our carnies got another meal. And now we have more leather.”

Tim added, “We’re keeping our fingers crossed about a couple of the others and one of their oxen. If they make it through the night, they might be okay.”

Alan said, “We’ve had a few fights over whether anyone sleeps inside, and who those lucky, or unlucky, people might be.”

Ellie winced slightly. People’s attitudes toward the deceased still amazed her.

“We’re here for at least two nights,” he continued. “The Austinites haven’t officially joined up, so I’m inclined to let them solve their own problems. At least where this house is concerned.”

“Uh, thanks,” said Leroy. “I think.”

Ellie nodded to the man from the little silver-mining town of Austin, the one who'd been declared their leader mainly by losing a round of “Not-It.”

“We're interested in your thoughts,” she said.

Leroy made a pensive noise and peered at the map. “If you folks are really headed to Oregon, you're gonna need to know a thing or two. First, no one's on our asses, so I assume Ely and Billy got into a scuffle. Or we lost 'em. Or both.

“Now, Billy has guys patrolling the Grass Valley Road. It's this one,” he said, pointing at a north-south-trending road running due north from Austin, once a stop on the Pony Express route. “Last I heard, those patrols went as far north as the Cortez Gold Mine here.” He tapped a spot on the map northwest of their current location at Telephone Canyon.

“The Humboldt River is the biggest surface water source between here and Warner Valley. You say you don't trust it?”

“Interstate-Eighty roughly follows it,” said Alan.

“Those tend to be major herd routes,” Lex added.

Ellie suppressed a shudder.

“And?” said Leroy.

“And if that river isn't contaminated,” said Lex, “I'll eat my favorite leather skirt.”

Leroy raised an eyebrow, and exhaled through his nose. “Alrighty, then. I think I have a plan, but you might not like it.”

* * *

Ellie gazed across two miles of sagebrush from atop a small rise. The Humboldt River wound sluggishly through the middle of the valley, the grey-black ribbon of Interstate-80 not far from it. A collection of buildings marked the town of Battle Mountain.

“Mos Eisley Space Port,” said Tim. “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.”

Lex snorted.

“What?”

“Your nerd is showing.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“Okay,” said Ellie. “That's enough. Leroy?”

The man straddled a borrowed bike a few yards away. “Welp,” he said, not taking his eyes off his binoculars, “no sign of anything moving. Not on the freeway, anyhow. Not as far as I can see in either direction. You say these herds can only, uh, shamble at one mile an hour?”

“Give or take.”

“Which means even if there's one the other side of those hills to the east, we've got at least eight hours to get to the water plant, break in, get some power to it, fill up, and get out. That's assuming there aren't any hiding in town.”

Tim said, “It's safe to guarantee it.”

“I'll take your word for that.”

Ellie still marveled that in all the time since the virus had first arrived in Nevada, there were still people who hadn't picked up on the basics. How those people had managed to survive baffled her even more.

She toggled her walkie. “Ellie to Alan. Let's do it!”

Half an hour later, Ellie thumped past what had been a golf course, then piles of soot and ash where a housing development had huddled near Hwy. 305.

“Damn,” said Leroy, drawing out the word.

“Geez,” said Tim, “you really didn't hear crap up in Austin.”

“Like I said, junior, just rumors. Lots and lots of contradictory ones.”

Ellie said, “Not the same as seeing it with your own eyes, is it?”

“Nope.”

They met the knot of cyclists on the salvage team at an intersection with 305.

“Well,” said Megan, “not much on this side. We were bored waiting for you guys. A couple of us were about to start an orgy.” That brought a round of barely-restrained laughter.

“Don't hold your breath, young lady,” said Leroy, “the other side of Eighty's not much better.”

Megan cringed, the motion visible even beneath her armor. “As long as the hospital's still standing, I think we can deal with it.”

Ellie brought Sally back to a walk and paused again on the freeway overpass. Her gaze took in what remained of Battle Mountain. Perhaps a quarter of the buildings in her line of sight still stood, most of those bearing scorch marks above window-and-door-shaped gaps in cinder-block walls or sheet-steel siding.

“Wow,” said Lex, “the Interstate wasn't much of a firebreak, was it?”

Leroy swore colorfully. “It looked black from up there, but...damn, it's so much worse up close.”

Ellie said, “If I had a nickel for every time we've seen this in the past five years, I could buy an Airstream.”

“Hell, you could just take one for free these days. But, yeah, I think I know what you mean.”

He raised his binoculars again and slowly scanned the town's ruin. At length, he said, “Nothin'. Let's go.”

Ellie lowered her crossbow into a ready position and nudged Sally back into motion.

Off to the left rose the Battle Mountain water tower, painted sky-blue with a waving American flag. Across the route to it lay more ruins. Cinder-block and pole-barn buildings stood silently gazing out, their windows and doors like soot-stained eyes, exterior paint blistered and peeling. Only a few signs on poles identified what those establishments had been: McDonald's; Super 8 Motel; Napa Auto Parts; Chevron. A large crater lay where a Maverick gas station had stood, its pieces littered about.

“Damn,” said Megan, “pretty slim pickings.”

“Well,” Ellie said pensively, “on the upside, there aren't many places for the Dead to lurk.”

“If you say so,” said Leroy.

Minutes later, she brought Sally to a halt beside a chain-link fence topped by barbed wire. Across the street, a church had managed to escape the flames that had consumed most of the rest of town. Beyond that lay nothing but charred ruins as far as Ellie could see.

In the other direction, the hospital still stood, an attractive beige building with decorative teal highlights.

“Hospital looks intact,” said Megan.

“Be careful,” said Ellie.

“I know, I know, we don't want another Moab Incident. Why do you think I chose a green shirt for today?”

“But,” said Tim, “isn't that all you have?”

“I have one red one.”

“Oh. Right.” Tim laughed. “Shouldn't you be wearing blue, then?”

Megan shot him a smirk behind her sunglasses and pedaled off across the gravel and asphalt to the hospital's back door. Ellie watched the group park their bicycles in a shaded area before nudging Sally toward a small gate secured by a padlocked chain.

She gave the head-butt command, and Sally lowered her head and lurched forward. The chain snapped under four tons of dinosaur and the gate sprang inward.

“Good girl!” Ellie cooed.

Leroy let out a low whistle. “I guess it's a good thing there's no one to arrest us for this.”

Ellie nudged Sally onto the grounds and dismounted.

At the tower's foot, a few paces from the central pipe that rose to the tank's belly, stood a small black vault with a one-inch pipe jutting out, capped with a faucet with an oversized knob chained to a fixture mounted to the vault's wall.

“Well,” said Ellie pensively, “no one's been in here, that's for sure.”

“Is that good or bad?” Leroy asked.

“Depends on your point of view.” She held up the pair of bolt-cutters she'd brought along and snipped the chain. “Here goes,” she said, and twisted the knob.

“Nuts,” said Lex.

Ellie craned her neck up to the tower. “If no one was in here...” She knelt down in front of the pipe and felt all around it. “Aha! There's a crack in the valve body. I've never seen one fail like this.”

“They can do that?” Tim asked.

“Well, it _is_ cast brass, pressed and welded. So, sure, apparently.”

“I thought,” said Leroy, “these things had backflow devices.”

“Whatever it had, it failed.” She pulled the walkie out of its pouch. “Ellie to Alan, over.”

“Alan here.”

“Execute Plan B. We'll meet you at the rendezvous point, over.”

“Cynabod, over.”

“Let's go,” said Ellie. “Tim, go cover the hospital.”

Tim muttered something under his breath, but complied.

The next quarter mile crawled by as they plodded past a dozen blocks of charred ruin.

Toasted vehicles sat on bare wheels in parking lots and at the side of the road, a few with their occupants entombed within. Warped appliances sat amid soot and ash. Power and phone lines lay on the ground, still connected to transformers fallen from ruined poles half-burned and covered with thick layers of cracked charcoal. Bones peeked out from layers of ash and drifts of dust. Dead trees groped at the sky with skeletal fingers. Across the blackened landscape, a few houses and trees still stood, accidents of the movement of wildfire.

“Do you think anyone will rebuild here?” Leroy asked.

“Hard to say,” said Ellie. “Probably not unless someone has a reason to settle here. No, I think nature will slowly reclaim the land.”

“How long do you think that'll take?”

“In this climate? Centuries. Maybe millennia.”

Ellie met Alan and the rest of the convoy at the intersection of Front and Reese Streets. They exchanged nods and Ellie nudged Sally into one of two left turns.

Twenty minutes and more charred ruins later brought Ellie, Leroy, Lex, Carol, Cindy, and Greg to a trio of buildings. Stacks of large concrete rings and lengths of concrete pipe sat beside a chain-link fence surrounding a small cinder-block structure. Beside the fence sat a single-wide trailer, probably used as permanently-temporary office space.

A gravel drive marked only by scores of tire tracks separated that from the Lander County Animal Shelter, a cinder-block building with a rolling bay door and a row of chain-link kennels, all roofed with sheet metal. A blocky air-conditioning unit hung by a window.

Three of the kennel gates stood open. Two others had rust marks on them precisely where the Dead would have attempted entry. Even from that distance, Ellie could see a lump of fur with bits of bone peeking out.

“Goddammit,” said Leroy. He turned aside and spat onto the gravel.

“Looks like someone was in the middle of releasing the animals,” said Ellie, “and was interrupted.”

Carol walked over to a red standpipe hose-bib near the bay door and heaved on the valve handle. It swung easily upward. “Crap,” she said.

“If we can get pressure to that,” said Lex, “this would be a perfect spot to fill up. Lots of room and plenty of visibility.”

Brookie sniffed around the cages and whined softly. The Bicentennaria continued sniffing, first along the base of the bay door, then at the steel slab personnel door, then at a second door around the corner. Lex thumped after, and a couple of minutes later, the two reappeared from the other side of the building.

“Clear,” Lex declared.

“Don't suppose there's any kibble left in there, do you?” said Carol.

Cindy pointed at a set of blood-brown, hand-shaped blotches on the bay door and the personnel door next to it. “I wouldn't bet on it.”

“One way to find out,” said Leroy. He dismounted, knelt down in front of the personnel door, and went to work with a pair of small objects. “What?” he said after a moment. “What do you think I did time for?”

“You hadn't mentioned it,” said Carol.

“Was trying to leave my past in the past. But it has a way of catching up to a guy, you know?”

Lex said, “Are you sure that isn't one of those pick-proof locks?”

Leroy chuckled. “Pick-resistant, young lady, not pick-_proof_. And this would go a lot easier without this damned bandage.”

“You have no one to blame for that but yourself,” said Carol.

“No, your damned dinosaur bit me.”

“Because you groped me, stupid. Even after I warned you. Twice. Do it again, and you might be missing an arm before I bother to call him off.”

Leroy looked over his shoulder. “You wouldn't.”

“Just don't push it.”

“I think you made your point,” said Ellie evenly. “Leroy, you were, in fact, warned several times.”

“And her...” He nodded toward Lex. “...dinosaur ate my dog.”

“We warned you about that, too. Multiple times and in multiple ways.”

“And my mule?”

Lex said, “Your mule broke his leg! What were we supposed to do?”

“I dunno, wait for it to die first?”

“Come on, you know nature is violent.”

“Work now, people,” said Ellie, “argue later, alright?'

A few minutes later, Leroy said, “Eureka!” He nudged the door open slightly and looked over his shoulder. “Who wants to go down the creepy tunnel inside the tomb first?”

“Oh, it can't be that bad,” said Lex.

Leroy jerked his uninjured thumb toward the still-occupied pens. “You sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

Ellie took up position and raised her crossbow. Lex and Carol did the same.

“I thought,” said Leroy, “your, um, dinosaurs didn't smell anything?”

“Procedure,” said Lex.

“If you say so.” Leroy shoved on the door. It swung easily inward, revealing near-blackness cut only by the small barred window at the front of the building. “Anyone got a light?”

Carol flicked on a Mag-light and stepped up behind Leroy. After several moments, she said, “No one's home.” Then, “Smell anything, boy?”

Brookie sniffed at the opening and grunted.

“What's that mean?” said Leroy. “Timmy's fallen into the well or something?”

Carol glared at him. “How the hell did you avoid getting shot by now?”

“Whooee, girl, you got a...”

“Leroy,” said Ellie, “relax. Carol, you think you got this?”

Carol nodded. “Sure. No sweat. Cindy, care to join me?”

“Oh, joy,” said Cindy.

The two stepped inside, Brookie and Maihee right behind.

Ellie turned to Greg. “If we get the generator over here, do you think you can get enough power to run the water?”

Greg looked over at the water treatment building past a chain-link fence a dozen or so yards away and exhaled through his lips. “I dunno. Maybe. If it'll run on one-ten, sure. If it don't, it'll be iffy. I've seen some three-phase equipment that still does something without full power, and I've seen some that don't. Won't know for sure until I get a look at it.”

Ellie nodded, then toggled her walkie. “Alan, would you send the generator over here?”

“Cynabod, over,” Alan replied.

“They should get here about the time we get that building open and see what's what. Sir Alexis, please keep an eye out. Greg, Leroy, you’re with me.”

Ellie whistled the ‘heel’ command and Sally fell in just behind her for the couple-dozen-yard stroll across more crushed gravel to the water treatment plant.

The building sat at an angle to the drive. The low cinder-block structure supported a blue sheet-metal roof. Several light-grey doors announced that only Authorized Personnel were permitted. At the far end, two bay doors set in the wall, with a second set mounted at a second story that rose only above that portion of the structure. Beside that, a large air intake grate was set into the wall and a small sliding window at the other. Several security lights hung on the wall beneath the eaves. To either end stretched a head-high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire.

Just past the fence sat a large green electrical cabinet, the meter mounted on the wall outside the fence. Behind the cabinet sat a large HVAC unit. Above it, a cylindrical ventilation unit protruded from the wall. A large sign fixed to the fence beside a double gate read “BATTLE MOUNTAIN WASTEWATER RECLAMATION FACILITY.” Beyond it all, lifeless halogen lamps perched on high poles.

Minutes later, the gate hung open and Greg peered into the open electrical cabinet. “Well,” he said, “about what I thought.” He shook his head. “There’s no way we’ll power up the whole thing with our generator. We’ll have to hook up directly, an’ hope to hell we don’t have to run several things at once.”

“If we do?” asked Ellie.

“Then we’ll have to rig up a windmill or a hand-crank or somethin’.”

Ellie grunted. She stepped around the side of the building. “Leroy! How’s it...ah.”

Leroy stood there, all five doors standing widely ajar. “If their security system was live,” he said, “we’d be under arrest by now. And even better, doesn’t look like anyone’s home. Hotter than hell in there, though. The place has some skylights on the opposite roof slope.”

“Good work. Greg...”

“The venting?” said Greg. He pointed to the cylinder above. “That one looks like it runs on one-ten. Could also be a candidate for something wind-driven. I’d like to get a small crew to get the cowling off. Leroy!” he added. “How hot do you think it is in there?”

“Hundred and ten? Maybe higher.”

“Yeah,” said Greg, “I don’t think we want to be working in that if we have a choice. Leroy, can you get the other doors open in there? Maybe we can get a cross-breeze in the meantime.”

Leroy muttered something and vanished into the building.

Ellie called after him, “Don’t open anything interior!”

“Yeah, yeah!” Leroy called back, his muffled voice echoing inside.

Ellie sighed heavily.

“He bugs the snot out of you, too, don’t he?” said Greg.

Ellie nodded. “I’m with Carol. It’s a wonder he hasn’t been killed.”

Moments later, the distinctive _CREAK-SWISH_ of rubber weatherstripping on concrete floated around the corner. Then again, and again. Then the clank-and-clatter of two of the bay doors. Presently, Leroy returned, a sheen of sweat standing out on his brow. “Hope you’re happy.”

“Thanks,” said Ellie, trying to keep the stress out of her voice.

“Well,” said Greg, “I’d better at least take a look at what we got.”

Despite a couple of minutes of ventilation, the building’s stale air hit like an oven. Ellie cringed. “Phew! We could use a couple of fans in here!”

“Sure,” said Greg, “I’ll get right on that.” He walked into the semi-gloom, Ellie and Leroy right behind him. He stopped a dozen paces in and looked around. “Mm-hm...mm-hm...mm-hm,” he uttered.

“What the hell does that mean?” Leroy demanded.

“It means I’m glad they put labels on everything.”

Leroy said, “You mean you’ve never been into one of these places?”

“A couple of times. But each one has a different design, different set-up, different equipment. Fortunately, it’s all variation on a theme. A motor is a motor, and all this is all motors.”

“What are we looking for?” Ellie asked.

“First,” said Greg, “the potable water supply. There’s probably a reservoir for it. With any luck, it’s been untouched since the place lost power. Second, I’ll want a gander at the electrical panels. Third and first, I need a flashlight.”  
Back outside, Greg fished a Mag-light out of his bike pack.

Ellie said, “I’m going to check on Carol and Cindy. Don’t open the office or anything without backup.”

“No problem,” said Greg.

“But we didn’t hear so much as a mouse in there,” Leroy protested.

“If you want to risk being bitten,” said Ellie, “be my guest. But I can name several people interested in tying you to the fence to die and reanimate.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Are you sure?”

“You don’t have a rule about that anyway!”

Ellie sighed through her nose. “Leroy, you do know how rules come about, don’t you?”

Leroy snorted. “Duh. Because the head honcho says so.”

“It’s because someone at some point did something stupid or inconsiderate, and so the group had to make a rule about it.” Or, she added to herself, out of fear that someone might do a thing. And never mind the other reasons.

“In other words,” said Greg over his shoulder, “if you quit bein’ a dork, we won’t have to make a rule.” At that, he ducked back into the building, the dot of his light bobbing in the dimness.

“You take that back!”

“Leroy,” Ellie sighed, “shut up before I say or do something we’ll both regret.”

She met Gail on the generator wagon abreast of the Animal Shelter. Her styracosaur snorted a greeting and Ellie took a moment to rub the animal’s lightly-velvety snout. Carol and Cindy leaned on their spears while Lex loitered nearby feeding Thunder.

“Well,” said Carol, “we found three deceased persons in there. Looks like they were trapped by the Dead, tried to live off the dog food, but died later, probably from dehydration. The good news is that there are several dozen untouched bags of kibble in there.”

“I have room,” said Gail.

“Let’s see about the water situation first. Either we can load you on the way back, or someone else can while they’re watering up.”

“Do I have to work with _him_?” Gail asked, nodding in Leroy’s direction.

Ellie shook her head. “Just Greg.”

“Good. ‘Cause Leroy gives me the creeps. How the hell they let him out of jail...” She trailed off, then added, “But if Freida here happens to, you know...”

“Plausible deniability.”

An hour later, water gushed from the Animal Shelter’s hose-bib into another of the scores of water containers lined up. As one was filled and hauled away, another took its place. Animals slurped at the half-dozen improvized watering troughs distributed about the gravel while their riders and drovers stretched their legs.

A growing line of armor, padding, and tack lay on the ground along the wall, drying in the sun. Another growing line of folding chairs occupied the mid-afternoon shade cast on the eastern side of the building.

Alan’s walkie squawked. “Alan here, over.”

Megan’s voice replied. “We’re done here, over.”

“Any problems?”

“Nothing we couldn’t handle, over.”

“Water’s waiting, over.”

“Cynabod, over.”

“Hell of a spot for a break,” said Hannah, one of the Austinites.

“It’s not horrible,” said Ellie. “We’ve camped in worse.”

“I don’t doubt it. Long periods of boredom punctuated by short periods of terror, you said?”

Ellie nodded. “That’s right.”

“How do you deal with that?”

Ellie chuckled. “Usually with a lot of yelling and screaming.”

“That’s not very reassuring.”

“After the first five minutes, all battle plans disintegrate into one of three things. Hit, then yell. Yell, then hit. Hit while yelling. If you travel with us long enough, you’ll see what I mean.”

“I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it.”

Twenty minutes later, Megan and her team coasted to an abrupt stop amid the menagerie. Samantha and several of the children rushed over with cups of cold water and thrust those into grateful hands.

After a few swallows, Megan handed her cup back and took off her helmet. “You’re an angel,” she said to the girl helping her, and mussed her hair.

“The usual?” Ellie asked after a few moments.

Megan nodded. “We had some close calls. If we didn’t have armor...” She left off with a cringe. “Tim covered us during loading. Man, that guy can shoot! We didn’t have time to sort our haul.”

“We can do that in a little while. You guys take a break.”

Megan nodded.

Alan’s walkie squawked. Moments later, he tipped his head back. Then, “Okay, people!” he called. “There’s a herd on the way! We have one, maybe two hours to clear out!”

Cries of dismay rose up.

“Leroy!” Ellie bellowed.

“What?!” Leroy shouted back.

“You and I are going to have a discussion you will _not_ enjoy!”

“But I...”

Alan said, “Leroy, shut up and start packing.” Then, “Team leads, front and center!”

Ellie placed a hand briefly on Hanna’s shoulder. “Well, Hannah,” she said, “here’s your ‘punctuated by short periods of terror.’”

Hannah swallowed visibly.

“Tell me about it.”

An hour and a half later, Ellie sat Sally in the middle of Hwy. 35 on the north bank of the Humboldt River. She watched the last of the wagons trundle by. Tim brought up the rear. His expression said what words needed not.

Ellie brought her binoculars and scanned the terrain. Building thunderclouds reduced everything to a washed-out grey. To the left, a gravel roadway, probably the remains of a construction alignment, vanished into the river to reemerge on the far side. Both banks were dismally devoid of vegetation, save for scrubby grasses. Barbed-wire cattle fences bound both banks.

“Damn,” she said. “Sir Alexis! We have company!”

Lex thumped over. “How many?”

“Hundreds. The wind...”

“...isn’t in our favor today,” Lex finished. “They’ll have to cross at the bridge. Knights!” she called. “Prepare to repel the Dead! Pattern Hammond-Delta-Three!”

Leroy said, “What the hell does that mean?”

“If you ask,” said Lex tightly, “I’d tell you.”

“I did.”

“No, you demanded.”

“If I’m going to fight those things...”

“Fine,” Lex grumbled. “It means we line the bank and bridge on both sides of the road. The goal is the hold them up long enough to break contact. Between the two fences, the river, and its banks, that means they’ll have to come across the bridge. So we pile up enough of them so the rest can’t pass. We don't even have to re-kill them, just stop them. Make sense?”

Leroy fidgeted briefly. “I guess.”

“Just remember what we’ve been telling you all, and you’ll live another day.”

Leroy grumbled something that sounded like “taking orders from a girl.”

“I heard that!” Lex barked.

Leroy flipped her the bird.

“That’s thirty!”

“I’m not in your chain of f...!”

“My chain of command doesn’t have sex, you idiot!” she interrupted.

“What?”

“Leroy,” Ellie snapped, “just shut up and deal with _that!_” She pointed up the road at the mass of bodies slowly shambling into view.

Leroy swore colorfully. He shouldered his rifle and squeezed off a round.

“Not until you can see the grey of their eyes!” Lex barked. “We went over this!”

Leroy shot her a withering look and said nothing more.

Ellie sighed through her nose. _If that man didn't run so hot-or-cold_, she thought, _he might actually be a decent guy._

Then the moaning started. Disparaging mutterings floated through the assemblage. Behind Ellie, Alicia started to fuss. Yards away, Thunder let out a wail.

“Yeah,” said Ellie, “me, too!” She cocked her crossbow and slid a bolt home.

“Remember,” Lex called, “we bottle them _here!_”

The Dead slowly closed the distance. A hundred yards...eighty...sixty. Ellie glanced at the three small gas cans sitting at the other end of the span, the wide pool of gasoline and used motor oil spread all around them, and the serpentine trail of it leading most of the way to where Sally’s front feet stood on the gravel verge. They shambled past the cans, and across the pool.

“Can we shoot them _now_?” Leroy demanded.

“Wait for it!” Lex called. “And..._now!_”

Ellie gave Sally the “flame” command. After a few moments of the expected wet slurping noises, the dual streams of fluid spewed from Sally’s nostrils, met a yard out, and combusted, the flaming liquid washing over the bridge, the gas, and the first couple of ranks of the Dead. The fire marched through, setting some of them aflame. Moments later, the pool caught and the cans exploded. Body parts arced through the air.

A billow of black smoke went up, joined by grey smoke from burning sagebrush that had caught near the opposite road-bank. Several of the Dead stumbled and fell over. More lurched around or over the bodies.

“_OPEN FIRE!!!_” Lex bellowed.

A barrage of bullets, bolts, and arrows flickered across the space. One by one, the Dead dropped. A ballista lance tore through a score of half-rotted bodies and stopped somewhere amid the pressing herd.

Ellie’s first two shots dropped humans charred beyond recognition. Her third downed what looked like a coyote. Her fourth, what would otherwise have been a nice four-point buck. Her fifth and sixth, an overweight person in ragged shorts and tank-top, and a teenage girl in dirty sneakers and shortalls.

One by one, the Dead piled up. Those behind tried to go around, but toppled over the concrete railing into the river. At the other end of the bridge, an Edmontosaurus lumbered forward.

“Karl!” Lex bellowed. “Put a See-Four into that edmontosaur!”

“On it!” Karl shouted back.

A minute later, “Fire in the hole!” Then, _TUNG-WHOOSH!_ A moment later, the front end of the hadrosaur exploded, leaving its head dangling on a splinter of spine. Its shoulders splayed away from what was left, it pitched forward onto its face, and toppled onto its side, rear legs slowly twitching.

The Dead behind it tried to get around, their moaning still filling the air.

“_RETREAT!!!_” Lex bellowed. “Pattern Murphy-Alpha-Two!”

Two of Sally’s progeny spewed fire at the Dead.

“Fire in the hole!” Karl yelled. Moments later, a bladder filled with poor-man’s napalm sailed overhead and splattered on the Dead. It caught fire and belched smoke into the air.

One by one, cyclists and dinos wheeled about and set off up the road after the wagons and herds that had already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Hickison Petroglyph Recreation Area makes for a nice stop along US 50. It has trails to the petroglyphs and nice viewpoints, complete with those ubiquitous interpretive signs. And it's a nice spot for a picnic.  
https://www.blm.gov/visit/hickison_petroglyph_recreation_area
> 
> US 50, once part of the Pony Express route, was voted "America's Loneliest Road" after I-80 replaced it as the main east-west land route. Rather than wringing their hands over this, the State of Nevada made it a tourism thing. There are even T-shirts proclaiming "I survived US 50, America's Loneliest Road!"  
https://travelnevada.com/road-trip/loneliest-road-america


	15. A Place to Call Home

Ellie looked out across a vast empty space. The little dill-like seeds of biscuitroot quivered in an anemic morning breeze. The sun's first rays turned the curved dome of Round Mountain into a shock of blond hair. Behind her, the last stages of camp-breaking wrapped up with the usual noise.

The road ahead vanish around a curve and reappeared far below on the floor of the Guano Valley, a broad, flat expanse of tawny-grey.

The Doherty Rim, a popular hang-gliding site during the late Anthropocene, plunged almost straight down.

At length, she saw a rider far below. Alan's walkie squawked.

“Okay, people,” he yelled a few moments later. “Let's do a brake test! Then standard downgrade. It's a long one, so everyone get a few nibbles and brace yourselves. One lane is blocked in three places, so it's single-file. There's a runaway truck ramp, so don't be afraid to use it. We have nearly twenty miles to cover today, so let's get to it!”

As usual, the smaller herds went first, followed by whichever wagons were ready. Ellie reined in five lengths behind Samantha's Airstream. She rounded the bend and quickly passed into shadow and the chill of an early-August desert morning.

The roadbed narrowed incrementally. Ahead, a small crew labored at rocks strewn on the asphalt, carrying or rolling them to the far side in a receding clatter of rock-on-rock. As the road fell and the rim rose high on the right, more and more small rock-slides encroached onto the pavement.

As promised, three landslides nearly blocked the way. Three-quarters of the way down, a set of wheel ruts ran up the truck ramp. A mile later, the grade eased, curved sharply westward, and spilled out onto the Guano Valley floor.

Another mile away, the sun painted the next set of hills gold. Ellie breathed relief and looked over her shoulder. Far above, the caravan inched downward, ant-tiny against the rim and the sharp line of the road, an engineering feat sure to be erased over the next century or two.

She brought Sally to a halt. “How are your knees doing, girl?” she asked.

The dinosaur craned her neck around and snorted.

“I don't blame you. Break's just before the next rise. Let's go.”

She nudged Sally into a slow walk.

A short while later, Haakon's voice floated on the breeze.

Ah, for just one time, I would take the Northwest Passage  
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea

One by one, others joined in.

Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage  
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea

Westward from the Davis Strait, 'twas there, 'twas said to lie  
The sea route to the Orient for which so many died  
Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered broken stones  
And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones....

Ellie smiled to herself. At the western edge of the flat, she paused to let Sally graze for a few minutes before nudging her into the gentle incline.

A dozen miles of rolling sagebrush and a gentle descent later, Ellie stretched her legs at the western side of Warner Valley. Just to the west, Deep Creek rolled out of its canyon and spilled across the flats, watering farmland and a vast seasonal marsh visited by tens of thousands of migratory birds, some of which hung from tack and wagon pending the evening meal.

Behind, where Twentymile Rd. met the Warner Hwy., lay the charred ruins of Adel, little more than a stop-sign on blacktop, a ZIP code for the local farmers and ranchers. A few bones, mostly human, showed through the years-old ash and cinders from which had sprouted the occasional tuft of grass or stalk of lemon-yellow evening primrose or various weeds. Amid that had sprung up the Outfit's tent city.

On both sides of the road and on both banks, dinos, equines, camelids, and others stood shoulder to shoulder sucking up water. Just upstream, a team worked at a pump for Haakon's cauldron, and for the boiled drinking water.

The sun stood a half-dozen diameters above the hills.

Ellie overheard Haakon questioning the children assigned to kitchen detail.

“What,” he said, “be a pirate's favorite fast-food joint?”

“I don't know!”

“Arrrrby's!”

Most of them laughed.

“What be a pirate's favorite poison?”

“I don't know.”

“Arrrrsenic! What be a pirate's favorite gas?”

“I don't know.”

“Arrrrgon!”

It went on like that for several more rounds before he asked, “What be a pirate's favorite letter of the alphabet?”

“_ARRRR!!!_” the kids cheered.

“Ah, but a pirate's first love will always be the sea!”

Most of the kids groaned.

“Haakon,” said Lex, “you're terrible. But I love you anyway.” She leaned up and kissed him.

Ellie smiled and shook her head. A tendril of hair came loose and fluttered in the hot August wind.

* * *

Golden sedges ringed a small lake. Its surface danced under a heavy late-afternoon breeze, sending golden sunlight twinkling from a myriad of small crests. A conifer-clad ridge loomed above its far side. To the north in the middle distance rose conical Mt. Bachelor, jagged Broken Top, and massive, red-headed, glacier-clad South Sister. Every few minutes, a trout jumped.

Ellie stood on a gravel apron spreading from a parking area to a small ramp of broken concrete at the lake’s edge. A trail led off to the right along the shore. She sighed heavily, looked at the ceramic urn she cradled in both hands, and glanced at Samantha.

The girl returned a strained smile, and nodded. The two of them set off toward the trail.

The tread wound between small lodgepole pines, past a picnic table, and ended after a few dozen yards where the lake emptied into a broad stream, sluggish at first, and not more than a few dozen paces across. An interpretive sign informed visitors about the headwaters of the Deschutes River flowing southward out of Little Lava Lake. Beside it, and below the high-water line, a small ring of rocks marked where someone had made a campfire in late summer some years before. A few yellow monkey-flowers still raised their red-spotted trumpets above the gravel.

Ellie looked again at the urn. “No wonder you loved this place. It’s beautiful!”

“Should we catch a trout in her honor?” Samantha asked. “I think we should.”

Ellie chuckled, sniffed, and nodded. “I think she’d like that.”

“You loved her, didn’t you? In your own way, I mean.”

Ellie nodded.

A twig snapped across the way. “Hold it!” a woman called.

Ellie’s head jerked around. Several score paces to the right stood a woman clad in forest camo and pointing a rifle at her.

Ellie cleared her throat. “We’re just passing through.”

“Then pass through over there.” She gestured with the barrel.

“We have a small task to perform, then we’ll be on our way.”

“Uh-huh. What sort of task?”

“How come,” said Samantha, “people keep pointing guns and stuff at us? We’re not doing anything!”

“Except preparing to poison our water?”

“It’s not what it looks like,” said Ellie.

The woman took another step into the sunlight. “Sure. And I’m the Queen of Kashmir. Now, either start talking, or start walking. Your choice.”

Ellie cocked her head. “Ruth? Ruth Powell?”

The woman’s weapon drooped. “Do I know you?”

“I don’t think so, no. But you look just like your daughter.”

“Every mother looks just like her daughter.”

“You sound like her, too.”

“What else is new?”

“How else would I have recognized you?”

“Who’s asking?”

“Ellie. Ellie Sattler-Grant. A friend of Jennifer’s.”

Ruth’s eyebrows went up. “Jenny? You know my Jenny?”

“She joined up in Honduras. She, her boyfriend, and a few others were holed up in the church they’d been building for the locals.”

Ruth lowered her rifle a little more. “Yeah. YWAM project.”

“Sounds about right.”

“Where is she? Where’s my Jenny?”

Ellie resisted the urge to look down at the urn. “You’d better come over here. We need to talk. About Jenny.”

The rifle came up a little more. “That’s a bit vague there, Miz Sattler-Grant.”

“Doctor,” Samantha corrected.

Ellie cleared her throat.

“Sorry,” Samantha said.

“Fine,” said Ruth, “Doctor.”

“We have a little food we can spare for an early dinner. We can talk over that.”

“Or we can talk like this.”

“This isn’t something that should be yelled across twenty yards of grass.”

“It is so far.”

“Oh, stop bein’ such a stick in the mud!” Samantha blurted.

“Samantha,” Ellie said quietly, “that’s rude.”

“But it’s true!”

“It’s still rude.”

“But Jenny wasn’t like that! Was she?”

“Wait,” said Ruth, “was? _Was?!_”

Ellie glanced at the urn.

Ruth nearly dropped her gun. “Oh, God!” she half-wailed. “She’s not...she can’t be...”

“Ruth, Jenny’s memory deserves more than a shouting match on the banks of the Deschutes River.”

Ruth’s other hand rose to her mouth. The first sobs rose up from her throat.

Ellie exhaled heavily. She held out the urn to Samantha. “Hold this.”

The girl took it gingerly and Ellie walked through the shin-deep grass and head-high corn lilies with their drooping panicles of green flowers. She stopped two paces from Ruth.

The other woman looked up with a tear-streaked face and blinked several times.

“I’m sorry,” said Ellie. “She was a good woman. I’m honored to have known her.”

Ruth tried to speak, but it came out as a choking wail. Ellie put an arm around her.

“Ruth!” a man’s voice called from the pines beyond. “Ruth, what...what the hell?”

Ellie watched a man in forest camo step out of the trees and raise his own rifle.

“It’s not what it looks like,” said Ellie.

“What...”

“Jenny!” Ruth wailed.

“Jenny?” said the man. “What about her? She’s not...is she?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Ellie. “Bob Powell, I presume?”

The man nodded.

“You two should come with me.”

What felt like a half-hour later, the Powells sat together on a picnic table at the lake’s group campground. Their rifles and well-worn external-frame packs lay on the table behind them. Bob cradled the urn in his rough hands. His gaze oscillated between it, Ellie, and the dinosaurs.

Sally reposed nearby, contentedly munching on the green needles of a lodgepole pine while Moonshine nibbled at the lower branches and Maihee grazed the grasses near the riverbank under Greg’s watchful eye.

Ellie, Samantha, and Cindy sat on a log opposite.

“I told her not to go,” Bob said at length. “That it was dangerous down there. Never expected...” He broke off with a choking sob.

Ellie let the wave of grief pass. “Jenny was quite the woman,” she began. “Always the first to volunteer for the toughest and most dangerous tasks. Always the last to complain. Even when she could barely walk after a hard day’s ride, you had to ask her if she was sore and practically order her to take an ibuprofen. Even then, she’d only do it after everyone else had one.

“She held parts of the group together most times. The whole group, on occasion it seemed. She had the most tenaciously positive mental attitude I’ve ever seen. Except when she was angry about something. Hoo-boy, could that woman throw a fit of righteous indignation!”

That brought a strained chuckle from the Powells.

“To be honest,” Ellie continued, “some found her conservative views somewhat off-putting.”

Bob nodded. “That sounds like her. Opinionated and stubborn as her mother.”

“We were in Moab last summer. She volunteered for a hospital run.”

Bob flinched.

“Even after being bitten, she managed to re-kill her attacker, carry several loads of medical supplies to her bicycle wagon, _and_ pedal the thing a good three miles, all while bleeding and being pursued by the Dead.

“I’ve collected all our stories about her in our Book of Memory and my daughter Alexis has made a very good charcoal portrait of Jenny.”

“Can we see it?” Ruth half-whispered.

Ellie nodded. “Absolutely. And you are, of course, more than welcome to a copy.” She held up a hand. “I know, I know, you’d probably like to have the original. All other things being equal, I won’t blame you. But...it’s a little complicated.

“The rest of us are camped downriver at Cow Meadow. A few of us came up here for that.” Ellie nodded at the urn. “She wanted her ashes scattered at her favorite places. Here at the Deschutes headwaters, partly on the theory that eventually her ashes will flow all the way to the Columbia.”

“Might take a while,” said Cindy.

Ellie shot her a look. “Eventually is a long time, I’ll grant you that. The summit of South Sister, Obsidian Falls, Scout Lake, Mesa Meadow, Wickiup Plain, Golden Meadow, Tumalo, Newberry Crater, Smith Rock, the Oregon Badlands, East Lake, Mt. Bachelor, and Maiden Shelter. This is our first stop.”

Bob and Ruth squeezed hands. “Those were always special places for her,” Ruth said.

“Maiden Shelter?” said Bob.

Ellie cleared her throat. “She said it’s where she...” She left off.

Bob glared at the urn.

Ruth elbowed him. “Get over it,” she half-spat.

“Kevin loved her dearly,” said Ellie. At Bob’s raised eyebrow, she continued, “He died last September defending the rest of us from a band of merciless marauders. We have his ashes in another urn back at camp. Minus the handful we mixed with a handful of Jenny’s.”

Ruth dissolved into wracking sobs. Bob nearly dropped urn, and set it on the ground instead.

Ellie exchanged a glance with Cindy. Between them, Samantha began to cry.

At length, Ruth said, “She never said much about cremation. Except that every time someone mentioned it, she’d wrinkle her nose.”

Ellie nodded knowingly. “When death stares you in the face every day...” She cut off with an ironic chuckle. “I suppose it was always that way. Staring us in the face and pursuing us relentlessly. But when it takes on corporeal form, that tends to make a person think. That’s probably why she talked about it to me. Anyway, it’s all in her will.”

“Will?” said Bob. “She drew up a _will_?”

“Had to. It’s a requirement for joining up. Reduces the ambiguity and quite frankly, too often we don’t have time or energy to deal with that.”

Bob nodded.

“Now what?” Ruth asked a length.

“I’d planned to take care of most of those places this week. Tumalo, Smith, Newberry, and Maiden we were going to do later. I guess it’s your task now. Though I’d be honored to accompany you. She also left some personal effects. Since you’re here, and we’re just down the road...”

Bob and Ruth exchanged a glance and nodded.

* * *

Ellie thumped down the gravel road to Cow Meadow, Cindy, Greg, and the Powells at heel. She reined in hard and surveyed the scene before her, mouth agape.

A tract of forest some hundred by fifty yards had all but vanished, turned into a field of holes where root balls had been, all trampled by dinosaurs. Beyond that, and across the bridge spanning the Deschutes River, a pair of towers stood flanking the drive to the Cow Meadow Campground. A timber palisade wall marched from each tower to the left and right several yards from the river. The root balls and attached stumps of lodgepole pines lay meshed together several paces from the wall.

Not that Ellie hadn’t heard the racket out on the highway. Scores of dinosaurs, hundreds of falling trees, and dozens of saws and axes made a fair amount of noise. Not nearly as much as even a single chain-saw, but more than enough.

She reined in before the bridge.

“Ellie!” Alan waved from the top of one tower.

“Alan!” she yelled back. “I thought we were putting off half of this!”

“Things changed.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And certain people got bored.”

Ellie rolled her eyes. “Of course they did. And what’s that?” She pointed at a sign hanging above the still-doorless gate: ZANGRE.

“Tim’s idea.”

“Hold on!” She thumped across the bridge and through a gate built conspicuously high enough for her atop Sally, the others right behind her.

The interior barely resembled the campground she’d left two weeks before.

To the right, the timber wall curved toward the lake, followed its shore, then curved back again to end at another gatehouse spanning access to the campground’s boat ramp. To the left, the wall marched away through the trees. Crews worked with pick-axes and shovels digging trenches, while others worked on scaffolding constructing what Ellie guessed to be fighting platforms.

In the center, what looked like log cabins or photos she’d seen of Fort Clatsop grew up around the campsites. Most of them, family-sized dwellings encompassing two or three campsites, still stood barely a half-dozen logs high. A central structure, massive in proportion, already rose to her own head-height, and several others of similar size seemed to have been at least set out further off toward the left.

Many trees, all lodgepole pines, still stood where structures hadn't displaced them. In a few cases, as with the wall, living trees had been incorporated where they stood.

She twisted around to look at Alan. “Now, what was that?”

“The Zangre,” said Alan. “Tim’s idea.”

“You’re naming the fort after some castle in one of Tim’s fantasy novels?”

“Ratified by vote. Wide margin.”

Ellie rolled her eyes. “Just when I thought this whole thing couldn’t get any stranger.” She cocked a thumb over her shoulder. “Brought company. Wouldn’t you know it, we ran into Jenny’s parents.”

Alan’s goofy grin faded. “No kidding.” He pulled his hat off his head and looked at the equestrian pair. “My condolences, ma’am, sir. She was a good woman. The best.”

The Powells nodded.

“Hannah!” Alan called.

“Yeah?” Hannah yelled from a nearby tower.

“That's 'yes, Sir,'” someone corrected.

“Toby,” said Ellie, “stop it.”

“But your Majesty...”

“Get back to work,” said Alan. “Hannah, will you take care of the Powells' horses?”

“Sure!” Hannah ducked out of sight and re-emerged at ground level moments later. “Wow,” she said, “we sure don't see very many equines in such good condition. Heck, we barely see any still breathing and all.”

“The stallion's called Loki,” said Bob. “The mare's Jenny.”

“After...oh!” Hannah cleared her throat. “I heard lots about her. Around the Wordfame Fire. I wish I'd known her. I'll be sure to take good care of these.” She led the horses away.

Ellie asked, “Is Alexis training as usual?”

Alan fidgeted.

“You're fidgeting.”

“No, I'm not.”

“Alan, you're fidgeting and trying to make it look like you're not. She's with her husband, isn't she?”

Alan nodded.

“Well, when she surfaces, ask her to come find me, would you?”

“Sure thing.”

An hour later, Ellie sat at a picnic table at the head of the Great Hall. She looked past several tankards of stoneware, metal, and horn, and two unlit pillar candles to where the Powells sat surrounded by those who had been Jenny's closest friends.

She watched Lex bring out the Book of Remembrance and unwrap it with all the reverence that had grown up around it over the years. Light from the lowering sun slanted past the edge of a tarp serving as a temporary roof and spilled onto the pages as Lex turned them with the expert hands of a warrior-artist.

Ruth gasped. She reached out toward the page on which Lex had drawn Jenny's portrait.

Bob choked back a few tears.

“That's so...” Ruth began again. “You captured her likeness perfectly. The light in her eyes. The way her mouth twitched up. The way she cocked her head just like...” She broke down. After a few moments of valiant effort, Bob lost it.

Ellie and Lex exchanged a pained glance and shared a cringe.

Once the Powells had recovered mostly, Lex said, “I'd be happy to make you a copy, if you'd like.”

Ruth blew her nose into a handkerchief. “Your mother said something about that.”

Lex opened her mouth, then closed it again.

Bob said, “Are you sure we can't have the original?”

Lex shook her head. “I'm afraid the originals are Outfit property.”

“But she was our daughter!”

Lex pulled out a pad and pencil. “I know, I know. But we have a contract. I have some time, so I can get started, if you want.”

Ruth and Bob looked at each other. Bob said, “You really are going to copy it by hand?”

Lex cocked her head. “No, I'm going to run over to Kinko's.” She sighed through her nose. “Sorry. It's just that we've been doing things low-tech for so long, I keep forgetting there was ever anything else.”

Bob nodded. He squeezed Ruth's hand.

Ruth said, “Sure. We'd be delighted...well, not that exactly, but...” She broke off with a sniffle.

Lex nodded. “I understand.”


	16. Do-You-Think-He-Saurus Regina

A mass of yellow-brown cottonwood leaves skittered across bare asphalt, stirred by a cool October breeze. A few dozen paces away, the Deschutes River flowed lazily past the city's Old Mill District. Beyond the eastern bank, a trio of relic smokestacks towered above the charred ruins of old-town Bend. Ahead, Colorado Ave. struck across the river from the East Gate toward The Dalles-California Hwy.

Steel tools rang against stone and concrete. Somewhere, a steam-driven saw whined through pine trunks and salvaged timbers. Above it all, the intermittent babble of human voices, the grunts and bellows of dinosaurs and llamas, and the braying of equines floated along with the autumn leaves. Somewhere high above, a flock of geese honked their way south.

Ellie leaned on her spear and sighed. Some days, she missed her life on the road, when being seven months pregnant didn't relegate a mother to guard duty. Never mind that everyone took a turn on rotation. Never mind that she didn't quite have the stamina for construction or the harvest. Never mind that she'd earned her Knighthood the previous spring. She supposed she should have been glad of the relief from the back-breaking work going on behind her, work that had proceeded all day, every day, since the thaw.

“Never,” she said to no one in particular, “in the history of boredom, has anyone been so bored as I am right now.”

She exhaled again, breath coming out in a white cloud. Set back a good thirty yards from the riverbank clothed with sedges and spiraea, the wall of the second Zangre stretched in both directions, the completed sections with their crenelations reaching like teeth toward the gunmetal-grey sky, the twin steel-faced timber gates rising higher than those of Europe's castles, or so she'd been told. Of course, none of Europe's castles had ever had to accommodate a Parasaurolophus and its rider.

Ellie's ears and attention perked up at the sound of approaching hooves.

_Finally_, she thought, _something more interesting than leaves and ducks_.

With a subtle rattle of armor, she drew herself to half-attention--or as close to it as she could--grounded the spear beside her boot, and held it out at arm's length. She stood there with her other fisted hand on her hip and her baby bulge sticking out.

_Hm-hm_, she thought, _definitely intimidating. If only Sally weren't nursing_.

She cut off her thoughts as a half-dozen riders swung into view, all on mules. Two pair of the animals pulled a large, four-wheeled cart. Bulging saddlebags hung on the other four. She shifted her left hand to her sword hilt.

She watched as the riders made their way along Colorado Ave. The workers on the wall gave no audible sign they'd seen the new arrivals. The party reined in a dozen paces from Ellie.

“Good afternoon,” said Ellie amiably.

A middle-aged woman nudged her mule another two steps forward. “Afternoon,” she said.

Like most others doing anything outdoors in Central Oregon, she wore a leather-covered wide-brimmed hat secured with a chin strap, one that looked like it had begun its life as a lineman's hard-hat. Denim jeans peeked out from around the edges of a pair of snake chaps and cowboy boots. A bracer on her left arm probably went with the recurve bow slung beside her. A revolver sat in a holster on her right hip, spare rounds shoved through dozens of loops in her tooled-leather belt. Undyed leather gloves sheathed her hands and wrists and boiled-leather plate armor protected her shoulders, arms, and torso. A down jacket poked out between gaps in the armor.

The woman gazed at the gate tower behind Ellie, cleared her throat, and continued. “I see the rumors have...um...understated things.”

Ellie would have recognized that voice anywhere, but with a few decades of gravel. “Darielle?” she said. “Darielle Hammond?”

The woman cocked her head. “I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage, Miz...?”

“Ellie. Ellie Sattler-Grant.”

Darielle straightened in her saddle, then swung down with long-practiced ease. She stepped over to Ellie and peered at her with familiar green-blue eyes. “Ellie...Sattler,” she said pensively. “Ah! Yes, you were one of the paleontologists my father consulted on his...project.”

Ellie chuckled. “You don't think that non-disclosure agreement is still valid, do you?”

“You'd have to ask my father.”

“But aren't you his lawyer?”

Darielle laughed ruefully, the tone belying years of sorrow and regret. “That was a long time ago. In another life.”

“I can tell you that a few more people have found out about Jurassic Park.”

Darielle scowled. Ellie grinned back.

“Right. But you and I never met. Unless...” Her eyes widened slightly. “You were on the island with my children, weren't you?” It was more of a statement.

Ellie nodded.

“Are they...?”

“Last I checked, still bugging the snot out of each other.”

Darielle's face lit up in a complicated mix of emotions.

Ellie looked past her. “I'm going to need you all to pull over to your left.”

“Why?” a man asked.

“You won't like it if you don't.”

“Is that a threat?” said a young man, probably in his early teens.

“Owen...” the man said.

“Let me put it this way,” said Ellie, “you want to pull over. And if you have any dogs, keep them down and quiet.”

“Why?” the man demanded again.

Ellie nodded toward the other end of the bridge. “That's why.”

Moments later, Sundancer and Lex thumped across the river's bridge, four of her Knights behind her on two parasaurs, an ankylosaur, and a scleranthrosaur. The mules shuffled and grunted nervously, their riders fighting for control amid curses. Darielle turned around and froze.

Lex reined in with a whistle two long strides from the head of mule team now crowded against one side of the bridge. Sundancer snorted at the nearest equine, which nearly bolted but for its rider's handling skill. “Wow,” she said, “we actually have visitors!”

“That...that...that's a dinosaur!” Darielle sputtered. She turned back to Ellie. “You mean Dad actually got that to work?”

“That and more,” said Ellie.

Lex laughed. “Of course he...” She cut off with a gasp. “M...mom?!”

Darielle spun around. Ellie could practically see the woman's jaw drop from behind. “L..lexie?” she squeaked.

Lex whistled Sundancer onto her haunches, slid off with a suppressed grunt, and ate the space between them in two strides. She peered at Darielle for a heartbeat. He face lit up. “Mom!” she squealed.

The pair launched themselves at each other, colliding with a creak and clatter of leather and steel. Ellie smiled as the two stood there in their mutual embrace. At length, they drew apart. Darielle held Lex at arm's length.

“Wow,” she said, “look at you! All grown up.”

Lex nodded. “Mom, I missed you so much!”

“Me too. I feared the worst. And your brother...?”

“Alive and annoying. No, really, we get along okay most of the time.”

“And he's...?” Darielle prompted.

“Probably examining Blizzard or Susan.” At Darielle's raised eyebrow, Lex added, “Blizzard's a parasaur, Susan's his handler.”

“Susan handles...the parasaur, or your brother?”

Lex laughed. “Both! Now that you're here, I mean, maybe...”

Sundancer took one long step toward Darielle, nostrils wide and dragging at a scent.

“Sundancer?” said Lex. “What are you...Mom, don't move.”

Darielle stepped back, her own breath coming rapidly. She wrapped her arms around her panicking mule. “It's okay, it's okay, it's okay,” she said to the mule. Then to Sundancer, “Stay away!”

“Darielle,” said Ellie, “she's right. Don't move.”

Darielle cowered some more and took two more steps back.

“I said don't move!” Ellie snapped.

“Sundancer,” Lex scolded, “stop that!”

Sundancer lowered her head and sniffed at Darielle. The woman began to hyperventilate. Sundancer sniffed, swung her head over to sniff at Lex, took another couple of sniffs at Darielle, then again at Lex.

“Wh...wh...what's it doing? Oh, God, it's...pre-tasting me!”

“Bull,” said Lex. She reached up with both hands, grabbed the allosaur on both sides of her snout, and pulled down. The great head swung down nose-to-nose with Lex. “Knock it off, dummy!” To her mother she added, “I think she's confused.”

“Wh...what?”

“You probably smell like me.”

“Is...is that a good thing?”

“Very,” said Lex. “Usually, by the time she's this close to another person, it's already too late.”

“That's supposed to make me feel better?”

“Uh, yeah. You're still in one piece, right? I can count on one hand the number of people she'll allow within arm's reach. An Allosaurus can be really temperamental.”

“You don't say.”

Lex peered pensively at her mother. “I don't remember you being this...twitchy.”

“I'm being sniffed at by an Allosaurus and trying to calm a panicky mule after spending the last several years trying to avoid being eaten alive by the walking dead.”

Lex shrugged. “You have a point.” She rubbed Sundancer's snout and made a few shushing noises. “Still,” she continued, “you didn't used to be this, um, agitatable. Is that word?”

The man behind Darielle leveled a rifle at Sundancer. “Get that thing away from my wife!”

“Hank, honey,” said Darielle through clenched teeth, “I don't think...”

“Get it back.”

“Put that down,” said Lex.

“Back first.”

“Hank,” said Darielle, “I'm going to have to go with my daughter on this one.”

“Honey...”

“Relax.”

“But...”

“Stand down, okay?”

The boy drew a revolver. “He said, get that away from my mom!”

Ellie drew her crossbow on the boy. “Put it down,” she said.

The boy shifted his aim to Ellie. “No,” he said, “you put it down.”

The two Knights on parasaurs drew their recurve bows. “Guess again, buckwheat!” one said.

“Owen...” said Darielle.

“Owen,” said Lex, “she’s not a threat to my mother.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she smells like me, you idiot.”

“Bullshit.”

Sundancer swung her head toward Owen and snorted irritably.

“You’re starting to piss her off.”

“I’m just standing here.”

“With a gun aimed at her.”

“So is Dad!”

“_He_ is just standing there. _You_ are being obnoxious.”

“The hell I am!”

Sundancer growled briefly.

“Owen,” said Ellie, “put that down, and shut up. If she growls again, you’d better freeze.”

“Why?”

Sundancer growled again. Owen shuffled nervously.

“I said freeze,” said Ellie.

“Let’s put it this way,” said Lex, “if she roars at you, you’ll have exactly three seconds to curl up on the ground. If you don’t, she’ll eat you, and there won’t be a damned thing I can do about it.”

“E...eat me?” Owen squeaked.

“She’ll do it,” said Ellie.

“She’s done it a few times while I’ve been astride her,” said Lex. “And sometimes she plays with her food. Do you have any idea how hard it is not to watch?”

“If it attacks my son,” said Hank, “I'll shoot it.”

“That'll just make her mad,” said Lex.

“And,” said Ellie, “if any of you squeezes a trigger, you’ll all look like porcupines in a matter of seconds. Which I’m pretty sure would place this among the top ten worst family reunions of all time. So how’s this going to go?”

Hank glanced at the other Knights and cussed.

Lex said, “Do you kiss my mother with that mouth?”

“Don't talk to my dad like that,” said Owen.

“Owen,” said Darielle, “don't talk to my daughter like that.”

“Come on.”

“Owen,” said Lex, “don't start with me. Just, don't.”

“I will if I want.”

“Owen,” said Ellie, “just chill, okay? You do not want her to challenge you to a plank-off, or a burpee contest.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because she usually holds the record. Her brother only recently edged her out by one rep. So unless you want to be doing burpees until you puke, I suggest you start showing some respect. And if that doesn't do it, I'm sure Sundancer would be more than willing to explain it to you one tooth at a time. And that's if Tim doesn't kick your scrawny ass first.”

“Don't talk to my son like that,” said Hank.

“Hank,” said Darielle, “you know I love you, but maybe you'd better shut up for a minute or five, okay?”

“Look,” said Ellie, “let's all relax, and put down our weapons.”

“And,” Greg called from the wall, “pretend you didn't all just draw weapons on a sitting head of state!”

“Greg,” said Ellie, “how many burpees do you want to do?”

“Um, none?”

“That's what I thought.” She returned her attention to the newcomers. After a moment, she raised her crossbow slightly. “Are we cool now? Or is Sundancer going to eat someone? It's your call.”

The newcomers looked at each other. One by one, they lowered their own weapons. Revolver hammers returned to rest positions, then slid back into holsters with a rustle of steel on leather. Knights relaxed their draws and Ellie raised her crossbow back to the rest position.

Lex grabbed Sundancer by one of the horn protrusions above her eyes. “You silly beast,” she said, “stop scaring people unnecessarily. Sheesh!” To the other Knights she said, “You go on ahead. I think we have things under control out here.”

The three saluted fist-to-chest. “Ma'am. Majesty,” each said on the way by.

Darielle watched the dinosaurs and their riders file through the gate, then cocked an eyebrow at Ellie. “Majesty?”

“It's complicated,” said Ellie. “Now that we're not going to kill each other...”

“Mama, mama, mama!” A small form charged through the gate, followed by a second. Samantha ran after them, two-inch beige leather pumps clacking on the pavement, a flared knee-length skirt flapping in her wake.

“Thunder!” Samantha roared. “Alicia! Get back here!”

Both children pelted across the space, weaving back and forth in that peculiar manner of toddlers that helped transform them into little piglets. Just as Samantha overtook one or the other of them, a quick zig or zag opened the gap. She lost a shoe, barely avoided twisting an ankle by the look of it, and hopped to a stop, grumbling under her breath.

Thunder slammed into Lex's legs and wrapped his little arms around her. He craned his head up and announced, “Mama!”

Alicia did the same to Ellie. Both mothers laughed.

Samantha shoved her shoe back onto her foot, stomped over, and planted her hands on her hips. “I tried,” she growled. “It's not my fault.”

Ellie suppressed a grin. She squatted down and hoisted her child into her arms. Lex did the same.

“Young lady,” said Ellie, “do I have to tie you and Thunder to Samantha?”

Alicia shook her head.

“Then you had better start doing as you're told. You don't want to be trampled, do you?”

Alicia shook her head again, dirty-blonde ponytail flipping back and forth.

“Or maybe I'll tie you and Thunder together.”

Alicia shook her head even more emphatically.

“Oh, but you like Thunder.” She looked at Samantha. “And you, young lady, what have we said about wearing heels on the job?”

Samantha squirmed slightly. “Alexis wears heels.”

“Not while she's working, she doesn't. And I think you just demonstrated why.”

“But I like them. And...” She trailed off and started fidgeting.

“If you're trying to impress the boys,” said Ellie, “there's one thing they like more than your leg line.”

“Boobs?”

“Competence!”

Samantha gazed back dubiously.

“We'll talk about this later.”

Samantha exhaled through her nose, but said no more.

Sundancer swung her head around and snuffled at Thunder.

“Suh-dassr!” Thunder said, punching the air between him and the allosaur with a pudgy fist.

“Yes,” said Lex, “that's Sundancer.”

“Lexie?” said Darielle. “Is that...yours?” She nodded at Thunder.

Lex beamed. “Yes. Yes, he is. And he's a turkey!” She rubbed noses with Thunder.

“I no tuki,” he protested.

“Is that so? Well, say hello to your other grandmother.”

Ellie looked on with a peculiar mix of warmth and sadness as Lex introduced her son to her mother, with all the expected awkwardness. Though if the circumstances of Thunder's conception and birth shocked Darielle, she neither showed it, nor apparently cared. For a short time, the years and responsibilities dropped away, leaving the girl Lex had been before the guano had hit the fan.

“It was great to see you, Mom!” Lex finally gushed. “We'll catch up later?” Then she added, “Should I tell Tim, or do we surprise him?”

Darielle grinned mischievously in exactly the way Ellie had seen Lex do countless times.

Lex mirrored it, then regained her composure with an apparent force of will. “He'll be the one who looks a lot like our father. And you're all invited to the harvest feast tonight.” She raised an imploring eyebrow toward Ellie.

“Of course,” said Ellie.

“Even my annoying step-brother,” Lex sighed.

“Hey,” Owen protested.

“I'll have you know I can kill you with a chicken leg in four different ways.”

“What is that, some sort of Navy SEAL thing?”

“Knights of Thunder!” Lex declared. She spun on the ball of her booted foot and led Sundancer through the gates.

“Nat a Thunr!” Thunder parroted over his little shoulder.

“Right,” Ellie breathed. “Gail? Would you come out here?”

At length, Gail rushed out of the gate, visibly straightening her clothing and shrugging her armor back into place. Two shocks of hair had escaped the bandanna she wore as a head band. “Yes, your Majesty?” she asked breathlessly.

Ellie peered at Gail and resisted an eye-roll. “You're late.”

“Apologies, Majesty. I assume you'll assign me burpees?”

“You assume correctly. And I assume he'll have been worth it?”

Gail grinned, a furious blush washing across her cheeks. Ellie smiled back. “We have visitors with wagons, saddlebags, and such.”

Gail came to attention. “At once, your Majesty!”

Gail brandished a clipboard and pencil. “So,” she continued, “who gets the bad news?”

“Hank,” said Darielle, “would you be a dear?”

“Oh, joy,” said Hank.

Gail took a few steps toward Hank and launched into a barrage of questions.

“What's your purpose in Chalion? Are you carrying any weapons? Are any of them sharp and-or pointy? Do you have any imports to declare? Do you...”

“Gail,” said Ellie, “this isn't the Canadian border.”

Gail pointed to the clipboard. “But...”

Ellie cleared her throat.

Gail started again. “What is your name? What is your quest? What is the average airspeed velocity...”

“Tim put you up to this, didn't he?”

“I think he was bored.”

Ellie groaned softly. “Maybe you'd better stick to the usual material.”

Gail nodded. “Yes, your Majesty.” She continued with an entirely different round of questions.

Ellie sighed and returned Alicia to the ground. “Why don't you go with Samantha while she finds a different pair of shoes?”

Alicia sighed heavily. “O-kay,” she hrumphed in typical toddler fashion.

Samantha fumed.

“What about those grey Maryjanes?” Ellie suggested.

“I guess,” Samantha breathed. She took Alicia's hand and half-tottered through the gate.

“Teenagers,” said Ellie to Darielle.

Darielle sighed wistfully.

Ellie nodded in unspoken acknowledgement. “Anyway, welcome to the Zangre,” she said. “Well, the second one, anyway. The first was a palisade fort over on the north shore of Crane Prairie Reservoir.”

“Zangre?” said Darielle. “That name sounds familiar.”

“It’s out of a fantasy novel.”

“Curse of Chalion, right?”

Ellie nodded. “The name narrowly beat out Camelot. There were enough people who weren’t keen on forever listening to songs from the musical, or bits from Monty Python.”

“Go away,” said Darielle, “or we will taunt you a second time!”

Ellie chuckled. “Pretty much.”

Darielle gazed at the massive gate. “With a gate that big, I'm surprised you didn't call it Minas Tirith.”

“That one came in third.”

“I don't doubt it. Do I want to know some of the others?”

“Harlech.” At Darielle's frown, Ellie added, “It's in Wales. It figured prominently in the Wars of the Roses and the revolt of Owain Glyn Dwr. We have a few Medieval history buffs.”

“A lot of people have been doing a lot of things since this whole thing started.” She looked at Ellie. “Majesty?”

“The Medievalists have some contagious ideas,” said Ellie. “I share authority,” she added. “But I'm no queen.”

“I don't know about that,” said Darielle. “You're at least partly in charge, you live in a castle, and you're surrounded by knights and dragons.”

“That's pretty much what a lot of people have been saying even before we started building the place.”

“You even named it after a Medieval fortress,” Darielle said.

“A fictional one,” Ellie said.

“Does it matter? Your people seem to have spoken.”

“Certain people have been taking certain things a bit too seriously, if you ask me.”

“Mm-hm. Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

Ellie's groan slipped out. “You have no idea.”

Darielle grinned.

“Alexis has been talking about starting an Academy over at the OCCC campus.”

“Oh? I didn't know teaching was ever on her radar.”

“It wasn’t. But her plans for computer science went out with the Anthropocene. Besides, I think she comes by it naturally. And it kind of comes with the territory as the first Knight of Thunder. She wants her husband to turn over his kitchens to someone else. Unless he decides to start a cooking school, which I doubt. Anyway, I expect she’ll want his help with administration. She's great at training, but quite frankly, she has the diplomatic skills of a brick. To be perfectly blunt, I don't think she could administrate her way out of a paper bag.”

Darielle smiled thinly. “Sounds like her father. What kind of academy is this, anyway?”

“For the Knights of Thunder, of course. What did you think I meant?”

“Kindergarten.”

Ellie laughed. “Alexis? Teach Kindergarten?”

“Her aunt did it. She was pretty good, too. I'd been hoping she might follow in her footsteps. God knows her father...well, that’s a long story.”

“I think we can arrange some time for all those long stories. In the meantime, there’s the matter of getting you all settled for however long you’ll be here. Once Gail has finished interrogating your husband, we’d be happy to show you around ourselves.”

Darielle smiled. “I’d like that, thank you.” She gazed past Ellie through the gate. “You say the dinosaurs really dislike dogs?”

“Severely.”

“Too bad. I like dogs.”

“So do I. Well, some dogs. We had a few when I was a girl. We had a corgi once.”

Darielle laughed. “A corgi is like an electron with fur!”

“Pretty much. I think that's why Mom liked him. She used to kick us and the dog outside. After being herded around the back yard for an hour or two, we were ready to drop. Smart dog.”

“Smart mom.”

Ellie nodded. “We later had a beagle. Gods, that dog couldn't shut up to save its soul.”

Darielle nodded. “I know what you mean. My Grandma had a miniature schnauzer. Smart for a while, then for some reason it started barking at the brain-waves of sleeping amoebas.”

“You ever miss dogs?”

Ellie shrugged. “Sometimes. To tell the truth, though, some of the dinos have some eerily canine behaviors. Chilesaurs especially.” Ellie chuckled. “They're rather fond of cats, though. Curious, that.”

“You know,” said Darielle pensively, “I've seen plenty of dogs among the dead, but never anything feline.”

“Tim thinks it's mainly because dogs tend to stand their ground until it's too late.”

“Tim does?”

“He's taken up veterinary science.”

Darielle laughed. “You're kidding.”

“Nope. Although, it may or may not have something to do with a girl. And dinosaurs.”

Darielle rolled her eyes. “Naturally.”

“We'll save you a spot at dinner tonight.”

“I look forward to it.”

* * *

Ellie sucked in a deep breath, held it, then let it back out. She shared a sympathetic glance with Alan. The whole thing still felt surreal and even a little silly. Until she thought about how seriously everyone else seemed to be taking it. What had begun as humoring people had turned into a habit, and though I have no data to suggest the habit was rapidly becoming reality.

“I feel ridiculous,” said Ellie.

“You look great, honey,” said Alan.

“I suppose it's too late to go with Guess jeans, a Hard Rock Cafe tee-shirt, and Reeboks.”

Lex laughed. “Oh, just have fun with it. Besides, that's so eighties!” She gestured at Ellie. “The whole Norse thing suits you anyway.”

Ellie sighed. “If you say so.” At least she'd managed to talk her self-described costume laurel out of “spiffing up her Viking apron dress using gold lamé.”

She'd settled on a simple blue linen long-sleeved apron dress over a saffron-yellow underdress that fell to mid-shin just above black leather ankle boots. The shoulder straps fastened on the front with a pair of silver brooches found at an abandoned antique store. She'd put her hair up in a bun secured with a pair of hair pins. Around her neck on a stout blue ribbon hung the Medallion of State, and from a new brown leather belt hung her Bowie knife.

She glanced at Samantha, perfectly at ease in a somewhat smaller version of Ellie's Norse attire.

Alan wore trousers and tunic in matching linen. From a stout leather belt hung a ceremonial saber.

Samantha matched Ellie. Lex and Tim both wore the white-leather belt and stout golden chain of a Knight's regalia. Lex had chosen a shin-length black leather wraparound skirt and two-inch heels, and a black leather jacket over a black silk scoop-necked top that contrasted well with her chain. She'd twisted her hair into a bun and secured it with a pair of jet-tipped hair pins.

Alan said, “Well, let's get on with it.” He nodded toward a pair of arguably-superfluous guards, who pushed a pair of heavy pine-and-juniper-wood doors open.

Tim strode forward. Once he passed the threshold, he took a deep breath and announced, “All rise and greet your king and queen, Alan and Ellen, undoubted Sovereigns of Chalion, and their heirs the Princes and Princesses Royal!”

“For crying out loud,” Alan began through clenched teeth. “I thought they were...”

“Just go with it for now,” Ellie interrupted in kind.

Ellie heard the rustle of feet and fabric made by hundreds of people rising from their seats. The sight before her nearly took her breath away.

The Great Hall had been utterly transformed since last she'd seen it. She'd approved the plans for it, of course, plans drawn by one Sverre Torkilson. On paper, it had looked more or less like a very large barn, one big enough to hold a college basketball game. She should have known just from the all the still-unfinished twining knotwork and gripping beasts and dragon heads carved on the exterior timbers. But when she passed through those doors from the foyer, she felt like she'd stepped into Medieval Scandinavia.

Built atop the concrete slab of a badly fire-damaged building, the cavernous rectangular space, all of roughly-hewn whole-log beams and pillars, could have been a barn. The similarity ended there. On every wooden surface twined carved scrolling designs--some completed, most still roughed-in or penciled—depicting beasts, some fantastical, others stylized real animals.

From each pillar hung a sconce or bracket holding a pillar candle or a Coleman lantern. From overhead beams hung several wagon-wheels supporting dozens of tallow candles, their light blazing off the creamy amber of newly-hewn timber.

Tapestries—some salvaged and a few created by artists with little better to do over the previous winter--obscured the remnants of cinder-block walls that had been incorporated into the new structure. At the far end hung the largest banner, blue with a blue chalice on a white mountain and a silver pterodactyl flying above it.

Below that sat several high-backed wooden dining chairs doubling as thrones before which had been set up the high table. On that sat metal and porcelain dinnerware.

In a large central fire ring of dressed basalt blocks burned several logs, others nearby giving off the powerful scent of juniper. On rows of trestle tables sat wooden, metal, and ceramic tankards belonging to the people who stood beside benches, all of whom looked directly at Ellie and Alan.

Ellie and Alan processed, hand in hand, down a broad central aisle, trying unsuccessfully to keep from blushing in response to the bowing populace. They filed behind the high table and took their places.

Ellie caught Darielle's twinkling eye and the slightly bewildered expressions on her husband, stepson and stepdaughter, and the rest of their entourage.

Ellie raised a mug filled with locally-produced root beer, acutely aware of the knife-edge they all walked between an act, a coping mechanism, and a nascent reality birthing a future Ellie scarcely could have dreamed. She exchanged a glance with Alan.

Alan raised a mug of mead and launched into a short speech thanking everyone for their work and dedication, with particular acknowledgement of those who had labored to safeguard the Deschutes Watershed.

“Was-hail!” he called.

Everyone echoed and all drank.

Ellie raised her mug of local root beer. “I would like to welcome our guests from the south, from the land formerly called California. Darielle, Frank, and their folks, welcome! They’ve contributed the olive oil, Napa Valley gnarly-vine zinfandel, dates, and candied oranges and pineapple for today’s feast. Was-hail!”

Everyone echoed and drank again.

Someone called out, “Long live the queen!” Everyone echoed, much to Ellie’s waning embarrassment.

“Long live the king!” someone else called. Ellie caught a sly grin from Alan as the assembly echoed. She also noticed Tim's slack-jawed stare at his mother.

Ellie reached over and lifted his jaw. “Please close our mouth, Sir Tim,” she said quietly, “we are not the Dead.”

She looked back at Darielle in time to see her wiggle her fingers in Tim's direction and wink with a mischievous grin and chuckled softly.

Lex stood and raised her own mug of root beer. “In addition to the generosity of our guests, I'm reliably informed that tonight's feast has _not_ been prepared by my husband.” She raised her voice in counterpoint to a few attempted cheers. “Now, now. I know how most of you feel about his cooking. I also know that if you're complaining about the food, that means the service is good.” That brought a round of chuckles.

“Despite how we've often grown weary of the same menu on the road, or thought we'd scream if we had to eat tacos again, or swore we'd start breathing fire from all the chilis, Haakon kept us fed and kept our stomachs mostly full and our bodies going. I'd like to raise a toast his many years of tireless and often unappreciated service. He's asked me to officially announce that his sous-chef Laura is the architect of tonight's feast. Furthermore, she'll be taking over as Iron Chef, effective next month.”

A chorus of cheers went up as hands thrust glasses into the air.

“That's because I'm going to need Haakon's help running my Academy. We still have a lot of work to do in a variety of areas, but I hope to hold classes beginning next fall. We expect to begin the application process sometime in March. And now, without further ado, the staff would like to present to you your dinner!”

“Long live the General!” someone called, and others echoed.

Servers brought forth subtleties. A scale model of Harlech Castle built with small blocks of cheddar and mortared with cream cheese. Marzipan sculpted into various dinosaurs. Small theropod skulls out of something that looked suspiciously like SPAM. Roses made with thinly-sliced apples. Barad-Dur out of dyed celery stalks, the Eye of Sauron out of candied orange wedges.

A stream of dishes from the season’s harvest followed. Brown multigrain bread, still warm from the oven, with whipped triceratops butter, both plain and with garlic and herbs. Roast styracosaur with plum sauce. Steamed kale with caramelized onions and pine nuts. Smoked kokanee, roasted bell and hot peppers, fried zucchini and Brussels sprouts, garlic cloves baked in small terra-cotta jars. Small pots of huckleberry jam, salmonberry preserves, sweet chutney made with osoberries, serviceberries, cascara, and salal. Whole watermelons. Pumpkin and strawberry-rhubarb pies. Yams, several colorful varieties of grilled corn on the cob. Dinosaur and llama cheese made in cheddar, blue, and gouda styles.

_Yes_, Ellie thought, _it's good to be the queen_.


	17. Knights of Thunder

Puffy clouds scudded across an azure sky. An early October sun hung two dozen diameters above the Three Sisters. People filled the athletic field of the Thunder Knights’ Academy, what had once been Central Oregon Community College. The Tower Rock Lookout showed through gaps between buildings.

Ellie fidgeted in the shade of a ponderosa pine just outside of Mazama Hall on the southeastern side of the field. She sighed through her nose. Why, oh why, she wondered for the thousandth time, had she ever let herself be talked into this stuff?

The “stuff” on this particular occasion might just as well have walked straight out of a Medieval manuscript and plopped itself over her body. Or, rather, after a few modern alterations. She'd lost count of the number of times someone in the know on such things had wailed, “But that's not Period!”

She’d allowed the Costuming Laurels nearly-free reign for her coronation more than a decade earlier, mostly for the sake of public morale. Perhaps the whole thing—the elaborate gown, the hairdo, and so on—might have been less onerous had she ever been the sort of girl who’d enjoyed playing dress-up.

After a great deal of hemming, hawing, arguing, deliberation, and threats of violence, Ellie had settled on a style that might best have been described as Viking Victorian. A style refined, reimagined, and reinvented over the years.

The crown on her head—influenced by some Medieval history group active in the late Anthropocene and apparently copied from a Scottish crown once worn by Robert the Bruce—was a fairly heavy affair, a wide strip of white gold with broad willow-leaf projections set with Oregon sunstones and thunderegg crystals, inlaid with stylized dinosaurs in raised relief, all in white, yellow, and Black Hills gold.

She'd done her hair in twin braids which fell down her back. From a stout silk ribbon about her neck hung the Medallion of State.

Over a goldenrod silk underdress with nearly elbow-length sleeves, she wore a protie-leather apron dress finished butter-soft and dyed a rich indigo, its straps secured with a pair of brooches in platinum worked with Black Hills gold and set with Oregon sunstones, thunderegg crystals, and South Sister obsidian. Over that, she wore an open jacket with flared sleeves that could almost have come straight out of a Victorian Christmas painting, but in soft black protie-leather with decorative gold buttons featuring parasaur heads in raised relief, and lined with saffron-dyed silk. Butter-soft black protie-leather elbow-length fingerless gauntlet gloves and knee-high black tooled leather lace-up boots with two-inch kitten heels completed her outfit.

At her side, Alan had somehow escaped with black silk trousers tucked into black leather jack boots and a blue silk shirt. At least his crown was a little larger than Ellie’s.

Lex, of course, continued to create her own style. She’d done her hair up into an elaborate fighting braid, wound it atop her head and secured it with a pair of hair pins tipped with purple thunderegg crystals. A black leather bodice accentuated a nearly-hourglass figure and leaving exposed a pair of well-defined collarbones and well-maintained biceps that helped hold in place her opera-length black leather fingerless gauntlet gloves. Her black leather pants hugged her muscular legs along with knee-high black leather boots with sturdy two-inch heels. Her sword hung from her well-used Knight's belt.

Ellie had heard it whispered for years that pulling off that look after three children should be illegal. Never mind that Lex had several formidable athletes in her family tree. Also never mind that she followed a fitness regimen that might have left Arnold Schwarzenegger in tears.

Tim, dressed in a black leather kilt, pirate-esque boots, and a loose grey silk shirt, took a deep breath and began.

“People of Chalion! Rise, and greet your Sovereigns, he who is as mighty as the mountains holding the Grail up to the sky, Alan King, and she who is as fierce as the silver Pterosaur flying free, Ellen Queen!”

She followed Tim partway around the semi-spongy track and then onto shaggy turf, now brown, kept trimmed by llamas, proties, and the occasional pass with a couple of push-mowers, and down a central aisle between rows of folding chairs and bowing people in a wide variety of attire, from clean jeans with button shirts and Stetson hats, to several variations on Medieval garb, to interpretations of functional Victorian.

She recognized most of the two hundred-odd people who'd turned out for the ceremony, most of them family, friends, and fosters of the current clutch of inductees.

The Powells, who guarded the headwaters of the Deschutes and had taken up year-round residence at the Lava Lake Resort. Greg and Cindy, who patrolled the Pacific Crest Trail on foot and skis between Santiam and Willamette Passes and had built or rebuilt a series of shelters. Gail and her husband, who lived at what had been the Big Lake Youth Camp at Santiam Pass. Carol, who ran the dinosaur ranches at and near Sisters. The Bowens, who patrolled the juniper country adjacent to Highway 20 between Bend and Burns. Bob and Sue, who occupied the rebuilt first Zangre and managed Crane Prairie and Wickiup Reservoirs. Rhys, who managed dinosaur ranches in Sunriver. Susan, who oversaw the Tumalo. Nest, who managed dinosaur ranches in La Pine. The Conlans, who patrolled Hwy. 97 between Bend and Chemult. The Jacksons, who patrolled Hwy. 31 Between La Pine and Valley Falls. Katie and Chuck, who lived at Crescent and Odell Lakes and guarded Willamette Pass. Ronald and Nancy, who lived at Diamond Lake Resort and guarded Diamond Lake Junction and Carbon Summit.

In front and to one side stood the body of Cadets. Among them, Greg and Cindy's daughter Laura with her chilesaur Beruthiel—a fluffy animal in mottled russet, black, and olive.  


Ellie smiled at each of them, a smile that had long ago become as natural as being hailed Queen. On the opposite side of the field, she stepped back onto the track where a brazier stood smoldering, and turned back around to face the people. Lex and several of the other Thunder Knights—those not tending to their duties in the lands all across Chalion—walked confidently up the aisle and saluted fist-to-chest. Ellie caught Samantha's eye and exchanged a smile. Behind them waited the current soon-to-be graduates.

Tim announced, “You have their Majesties' leave to make yourselves comfortable!”

The people sank back onto their chairs.

“In the days,” Tim pronounced, “of Nublar, Sir John Hammond created the Knights of Thunder. And at the dawn of the Thanatocene, Queen Ellen fostered them. Together, they led the people through the Dead Lands to the promised land, the land that became Chalion. Today, we continue that tradition!”

Lex took over. “Alicia Grant, Ellensdotter, approach!” she said.

Ellie smiled slightly despite herself. Alicia’s road had been rough. She’d entered the Academy the day after she’d turned twelve and had first attempted the Trials the day she’d turned sixteen, the earliest the Charter allowed. It had taken her four more years of hard work and more tears than Ellie would have preferred.

Alicia marched confidently across the shaggy turf. She saluted, and took a deep breath.

“A Knight is sworn to valor. Her heart knows only virtue. Her blade defends the helpless. Her might upholds the weak. Her words speak only truth. Her wrath undoes the wicked. Her knowledge will defeat ignorance. Her skills will be taught to the willing. Her temper shall be held by patience. She will give aid to those who seek it. She will ask for aid when needed.”

“Alicia,” Lex continued, “you have passed the Trials. Are you prepared to take the Oath?”

“I am prepared!”

“Then kneel.”

Alicia sank to one knee and placed one hand in Ellie's and the other in Lex's.

“I, Alicia Grant Ellensdotter, do swear fealty and service unto the Crown of Chalion, and to its arm, the Knights of Thunder. To speak and to be silent, to do and to let be, to come and to go, in need and in plenty, in peace and in war, in living and in dying, from this hour henceforth, so long as the high mountains hold the Grail up to the sky, and the silver Pterosaur flies free, until my Liege release me, the Dead cease to rise, or the world end.”

“And I, Ellen Sattler-Grant Sharonsdotter...”

“And I, Alexis Snow Dariellesdotter...”

“...hear and shall not forget, nor fail to reward, that which is freely given...fealty with love, valor with honor, and oathbreaking with justice.”

“Will you receive the Mark?”

“I will!”

Lex pulled a small branding iron from a charcoal brazier. She pressed its tip briefly against the center of Alicia’s forehead. It sizzled softly. Alicia barely flinched. Ellie’s Mark itched in sympathy.

Alexis drew her sword. “By the authority passed to me, and by the concurrence of the Crown in whose fealty you now stand, I, Sir Alexis, Knight of Thunder, dub thee Sir Alicia, Knight of Thunder!”

She touched the flat of the blade to each of Alicia's shoulders.

“Now rise, Sir Alicia, and take your place among your peers!”

Ellie caught her daughter’s twinkling eye and beamed. Lex waited for the cheers to subside.

“Thunder Snow, Alexisson, approach.”

Thunder's road had been almost as rocky. He'd entered the Academy at thirteen, taken a year off at sixteen to hike part of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Columbia Gorge south through the Klamaths to loop east of Shasta and thence north through the juniper woodlands and sagebrush country, and worked his tail off to graduate with Alicia.

“A Knight is sworn to valor. His heart knows only virtue...”


	18. Daughter's Day

An opening door drew Darielle out of her reading. She lay the current edition of the Diaries on her lap as her mother strode over.

“Well, look who has arisen,” her mother said cheerily.

Darielle looked at the books scattered around her bed. She took a deep breath and said, “Why did many-greats-grandfather act like that when many-greats-grandmother wore leather and everyone wears leather, what is a Rav-Four, was that really the Thunder Knight ceremony, what does shoot yourself into me mean, how could they not know that parasaurs breathe fire when everyone knows that, what is as-falt? How silly!”

Her mother laughed.

“What?” she asked.

“You must be feeling better. You just asked no fewer than half a dozen questions with but one breath.”

“Did not.”

Her mother smiled and shrugged. “Near as.” She took in the crooked stacks of books and the ones with bits of yarn hanging out from between their pages. “You were busy, I see.”

“I...skipped around. Some of the parts were boring.”

“Life is like that. Long periods of boredom with short periods of excitement.”

“And adventure!”

“Adventure is someone else being miserable in a far away land.”

“Is not.”

“Have I not told you the story of Frodo and the Ring? Or Moses in the Desert? Or Lewis and Klark?”

Darielle nodded.

“Did they enjoy their adventures?”

Darielle shook her head. “They were cold, or hot, or thirsty, or hungry, or all of those. And mosquitoes. And snakes. And enemies.”

“That and more.”

“But not the Dead.”

“Not then, no. And if it were so, then it would have persisted in the stories.” Mother sat down on the edge of the bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Icky.”

“Icky how?”

“Like my skin wants to crawl off my body.” Her stomach gurgled. “And hungry.”

Mother smiled. “Very good. I believe you are well enough for tomorrow's festivities.”

“Tomorrow?”

“The Daughter's Day celebration.”

“Oh! Is it already?”

Her mother nodded. “For now, I have arranged broth, a nourishing custard, and a piece of carrot cake.”

“Carrot cake?” she gasped. “With cream-cheese icing?”

Her mother nodded.

“My favorite!”

“Be sure to eat it slowly, though. It would not do for you to make yourself sick to your stomach after being ill.”

Darielle sighed. “And more herbal tea, I suppose?”

“Of course.”

“I am bored with herbal tea.”

“Our apothecary has, shall we say, mixed things up a bit. And I might be persuaded to let you have a few sips of warm spiced honey mead.”

Darielle sat up straight.

“Only a few sips. After all, you have passed but eight winters. After you have eaten and bathed, I think we should go for a stroll while your bed-clothes are laundered and your chambers cleaned.”

Darielle nodded.

“Do you think you need help to your table?”

Darielle scowled.

Her mother smiled, then gestured in that direction. She stood up, took a few paces across the room, and opened a window. Sunlight spilled into the room, angling sharply downward to shine on well-polished planks stained a rich rust. A puff of fresh air swirled about the room.

Darielle collected the stray books from her bed and stacked them unevenly on the table beside her and pulled the covers off herself. She swung her feet out and stood up. She tottered, then fell back with an oof.

Her mother looked back and raised an eyebrow.

“I can do it,” Darielle glowered.

“I never doubted it.”

Darielle braced herself on her bed's edge and carefully stood up on legs far more wobbly than after an afternoon of swimming. She carefully crossed the floor, grabbed a chair, and plopped onto it.

“There,” she stated. “Told you.”

“So you did.” Her mother leaned forward slightly. “Do you know what happens when you forget to eat?”

“Of course,” Darielle said, making no effort to keep from rolling her eyes.

“Well, in the last two weeks, you have eaten what you usually eat in one day.”

“I have not been hungry.”

“Oh, I believe you. But that is not the point. The point, dear daughter, is that lack of food weakens the body.”

“Hrmph.”

“Hrmph all you want. But I distinctly remember the week before your illness, you trotted all about this room in the manner of a cat on nip. And now? You crossed the floor as you will when you are old.”

Darielle crossed her arms and glared.

“Oh, do not glare at me in that tone of voice, young princess,” Mother chided.

“Then how _should_ I glare at you?”

Mother made a pensive sound, then said, “I will ponder it and inform you later. In the meantime, I do believe your breakfast has arrived.”

One of the kitchen staff walked in with a basket woven from willow sprigs and began to unload its contents before Darielle. As promised, a stoneware bowl half-full of broth, another nearly full of an off-white custard, a plowl with a generous slice of carrot cake topped with cream-cheese icing, and a corked stoneware bottle. The man handed Mother a second stoneware jug.

“Thank you, Herkin.”

Herkin bowed and retreated wordlessly.

Mother pulled the cork from her jug and took a sip. She held the jug toward Darielle. “As promised,” she said. “Just a sip.”

Darielle took it in both hands and raised it to her lips. A little of it gushed past her lips and flowed over her tongue like smooth liquid fire. She blinked, coughed once, and handed the jug back to Mother.

“Strong?”

Darielle began to speak, coughed, then said in a half-whisper. “No. Of course not.”

Mother smiled. “Did I tell you what happened the first time I tried mead?”

Darielle shook her head.

“I immediately sprayed it out all over the High Table. In front of visitors from Norland, no less. I was about your age, come to think of it. I am quite sure that had I been a little older, the whole thing would have been quite embarrassing.”

Darielle nodded. “I think perhaps I shall satisfy myself with the tea, thanks.”

Mother smiled. “Very good. Now, I have a few matters to attend to. I will check on you in a while.”

* * *

Darielle sat at her dressing table, counting out the final brush-strokes. Her brush stalled yet again in a tangle of midnight-black hair. Her bath had felt so good. In fact, she was quite sure she had never enjoyed a bath nearly so much. But baths always came with impossibly unmanageable hair later.

At least the warm water had loosened up all her chickenpox scabs, visible now as slightly discolored spots on her skin instead of the crusty little lumps that had speckled her body for the past two weeks. Ick! Just thinking about it made her itch all over again.

She returned her attention to her hair. Every few strokes, she peered at her reflection. Same midnight-black hair with its usual frizzy wave. Same forest green eyes. Same mocha skin. If not for the few dozen slightly puckered spots and a slightly paler complexion, she might not have known she'd ever had the chickenpox.

The whole ordeal had left her utterly drained, though. How her mother expected her to attend the Daughter's Day ceremony in her condition, she scarcely could imagine. A gurgling stomach reassured her that her appetite had returned with a vengeance. Perhaps that was how.

She looked up at a set of approaching footsteps. She turned to see her mother stroll into the room, carrying a small bundle. She held it out with a smile.

Darielle accepted it and pulled back the folds of cloth, revealing a pile of soft leather, dyed a rich blue.

“Ooo!”

She stroked it, then stroked it again and again.

“You like it?” her mother said.

“It's beautiful!”

“Go on, unfold it.”

Darielle set the whole thing on her table and picked up the leather. It slid down and around itself, the lower hem coming to rest on the floor. She held it up at arm's length. She recognized the form immediately. The skirt flared out from the waist just a little, the twin shoulder straps just the right width.

“I thought,” said her mother, “that you might want something to pair with your new brooches for today's Daughter's Day celebration. And these.”

Her mother held out a pair of ankle-boots, also in the same indigo protie-skin leather, also worked and tanned to the same butter-soft finish as her new over-dress. Round toes turned up slightly, and blue cording wove in and out through riveted brass eyelets.

Darielle beamed at her mother. “Thank you!” she gushed.

“Shall we finish with your hair and then try this on?”

Darielle nodded vigorously.

At another stomach gurgle, Mother said, “And another small meal, perhaps?”

Darielle smiled sheepishly.

A short while later, Darielle turned her head first one way and then another, admiring the way her twin braids worked their way down the sides of her head to join together between her shoulder-blades. Her leather skirts swished pleasantly against her legs where the hem stopped halfway between knees and ankles.

A sage-green linen undergown, hemmed just above her wrists and a little above her knees, set off the vibrant blue leather and golden glow of the bronze brooches that secured the shoulder straps of her over-dress.

She ran her hands down her flanks, then again, and again.

Her mother giggled.

Darielle looked up. “But it feels so _soft_!” she gushed. She took a deep breath. “And it smells so _good_!” she added.

“And that, dear one, is why so many of us like leather so much.”

Darielle nodded. She supposed that was one result of maintaining such large animals. Every part was used, and such large animals always yielded an awful lot of each of their parts.

Her mother held out a gallie-feather mantle and a pair of soft protie-leather gloves dyed black. “To keep off the chill,” she said.

Darielle tugged on the unlined gloves and flexed her fingers, smiling at the distinctive creak of leather. She let her mother drape her mantle about her shoulders, the blue-green feathers with their russet accents setting off both her dress and her eyes.

“I daresay,” said her mother, “that we shall positively have to fight the boys away from you.”

Darielle frowned.

“You shall understand when you are older.”

“Oh. More grown-up stuff?”

Her mother nodded and Darielle sighed.

“That is something to worry about later. For now, shall we go out?”

Mother led the way into the corridor serving their family's wing of the Zangre. Her shoes made soft tapping sounds on the green-and-buff ceramic tile floor.

They both paused at a small alcove in the wing's antechamber. In it stood an artifact of the Ancients, the figure of a white cat standing on its hind legs like a human, a red bow atop its head, a dark pink tunic draped about its body, and its right paw raised in benevolent greeting. Discovered buried in centuries-old mud at the northern end of the Vale of Wilahmut and made of some strange substance--as though bone and leather had been mixed up together--most archaeologists believed it to be a representation of Kugar. They bowed their heads briefly and signed the Ears in reverence.

At length, they stepped out onto a generous patio atop the wall and into the bright mid-spring sunshine. She squinted hard while her eyes adjusted.

Nearby sat a large stone trough in which a surprising collection of small saxatile plants grew. Yellowbells nodded on short stems, vivid pink shooting-stars waved above small round leaves, and small yellow violets huddled close to the ground. Pale pink fringecup and violet grass-widows quivered in a light breeze and deep rosy Kolumbya biscuitroot held just above blue-ish curly leaves. The fleshy leaves of several kinds of stonecrop covered the gravel and nestled up to large decorative stones from all over Shalyon. Beneath a still-leafless redbud in a large stoneware pot, a few round-leaved trilliums thrust a trio of narrow purple petals from the base of its mottled leaves and fawn lilies held nodding white flowers above dappled strap-shaped leaves.

Across the expansive central courtyard and above the entrance to the Great Hall, an immense bronze statue sat supported by basalt columns. Skilled craftspeople had removed most of the crusted earth accumulated over ten thousand years. Patina still lay in the crevices, but most of its surface blazed in the sunlight. A hundred times taller than herself, the statue had been cast in the likeness of a woman bearing a trident in one hand, and kneeling down with her other hand outstretched in welcome. Discovered buried in the muck near the confluence of the Rivers Wilahmut and Kolumbya, part of it had been revealed during a flood event. Upon excavation, it had been transported with great difficulty over the mountains.

Darielle had been told that most experts considered it to be the representation of one of the Ancients' sea goddesses. Several symbols had been discovered near its base: P A D T O L I R N A. Most assumed that to be the name of the goddess. Though the symbols resembled some of the ones appearing in the Diaries of Ellen Sattler-Grant, no one could decipher them.

Once her vision had adjusted enough, she gazed westward. Where the Three Sisters had once stood so long ago, two clusters of seven mountains scraped the sky. The Seven Brides for the Seven Brothers, all bearing names from deep antiquity: Snow, Ella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, and Pocahontas the brides; Charming, Christopher, Philip, Erik, Adam, Aladdin, and John the brothers. All spilling glacial melt-water westward toward the Vale of Wilahmut, or eastward to feed the River Deshuts.

She tried to imagine what that skyline had looked like when the Matriarch had first arrived, before twelve thousand years of fire and ice had changed the land. She had only the drawing in her chambers to inform her of the Three Sisters, their Bachelor Mountain, and jagged Broken Top, with nothing to the south until Diamond Peak, Mount Teelson, Ring Lake, Mount Loflinson, and then even further to the south near a previous site of the Zangre, Mount Shasta. To the north, Mount Washington, Three-Fingered Jack, Mount Jeffrison, and Mount Hud. The Diaries testified that on a clear day, one could see it all.

To the north, the shattered hulk of Mount Hud hunkered on the horizon. It had once been the greatest mountain in the Empire. Taller than Shasta. Taller than Reneer. Taller even than Denali. Its summit had scraped the clouds and many had died climbing it.

On the day of Darielle's birth, almost to the minute, the mountain had exploded. The blast had been audible even in the birthing chamber where her mother had been in labor, and the earth had shaken the Zangre. Glaciers on all the mountains had cracked, tumbled, and released water that had surged down rivers already swollen with early spring snow-melt. The ash plume had climbed high into the sky, billowing up continually for two whole months, rising like the smoke of a forest fire and carried away by the winds that moved high up in the sky.

It had made a ferocious mess. That was how her father put it.

The blast had blown sideways. The northern flank of the mountain had slid away, then blasted off into the Kolumbya Gorge. The mud and debris flows had been devastating. More than half a mountain's worth of rock, gravel, dirt, and ash had choked the river. The glaciers and lingering snowpack that had clad the mountain had melted instantly, and surged down the Rivers White, Sandy, Salmon, and Zigzag with muddy water.

Darielle had seen the mighty rapids on the River Deshuts at its confluence with the White River, where tons of rock and gravel had been dumped as the surge, a hundred times greater than a glacial outburst, had gushed out of the White River canyon and slammed against the Deshuts canyon wall, obliterating the road there, before flowing downriver and depositing the mess as it went.

Of the mountain's glaciers, only Zigzag, White River, and Palmer had begun to re-form, though not, she'd been told, exactly in their pre-eruption locations. In addition, another glacier had been growing inside the blast crater, sandwiched between the crater wall and a still-growing lava dome.

Most of the disgorged mass had been hurled northward, clogging up the River Kolumbya. Over ensuing months, subsequent lava flows had completed the damming and the impounded waters had since backed up the Deshuts all the way to the Cataract of Sherar and remained that way. The Kolumbya itself poured over the dam in a cataract at a place once called the Bridge of the Gods.

When the Vale of Wilahmut had filled with water half a century into the Thanatocene, and the southern third became an inland brackish marsh stretching between the places called Yushin in the south to Albani at the southern shore, increasing storm clouds breached the Cascades. The River Deshuts and the streams and glaciers that fed it swelled. The land grew lush and the infant Empire prospered.

She often tried to imagine the Vale of Wilahmut full of water. Which she usually found a little easier than seeing the Kolumbya Bar as a ridge of dunes left when the world's ice had returned and the ocean's shore had retreated to leave a broad coastal plain where before, the Coast Ranges had risen directly out of the churning sea in most places. Now, the sea had swallowed more than half that plain.

She'd seen maps of the world from that time. Copies of copies of copies some of them, the rest educated guesses. The River Deshuts had once begun at the Little Lava Lake mentioned in the Diaries, flowed south for a day's ride before curving east around a line of small mounts and flowing northward again all the way to the River Kolumbya.

None of it remained. The fourteen peaks of the Seven Brides and Seven Brothers dominated it all, most sitting atop what remained of the old mountains after the glaciers of the last ice age had ground the original Sisters, Jack, Washington, and others down to hard spires that still tried to claw the sky.

They--and a myriad of smaller mountains, cinder cones, and calderae with their associated lava flows--stretched in a staggered, chaotic line from just south of the shattered and half-buried remains of Diamond Peak all the way to the horn of Mt. Jefrison.

Waldo Lake, further dammed and deepened by a lava flow, drained over the crest eastward. Glaciers lay pinched between mountains in some places and in others, lakes lay nestled in forested hollows. In some places, gorges cleaved the rock where a suddenly-melted glacier had nowhere else to go in the face of a nascent volcano now thousands of years old. Some mountains, as had the Newberry Crater, cradled caldera lakes teeming with trout.

Today, the Deshuts headwaters lay at Crescent Lake. Pinched against the volcano bounding its eastern shore, the lake had moved only a quarter-day's ride eastward, its basin shoved by the same glacial forces that had formed it in the first place even before the Anthropocene. Each year as spring gave way to summer, several kinds of salmon surged up the river. Some, the smaller reddish ones called sockeye, spawned in the wide gravelly streams that fed Crescent Lake and its morraine shores. Later, as summer became fall, other salmon returned to spawn.

Eastward, Mt. Ellen dominated the landscape, spanning more than a day's ride from toe to toe and nearly a week's ride around. Her summit scraped the sky, the highest peak on the continent.

Rivers ran off her eighteen glaciers, flowing in broad sheets across bare rock in some places, or through serpentine channels in deep volcanic ash. In a couple of places, a stream vanished into a lava tube to reemerge from a cliff face and plunge down a wall dripping with yellow monkey-flower and white saxifrage into the River Deshuts. To the east, streams flowed across lava and ash, terminating in broad meadows, sometimes close to the parent glaciers and sometimes many days' ride away.

A broad, thick lava flow lay westward, damming up the River Deshuts into an immense lake. The lake drained around the flow's westernmost tongue, and wrapped around eastward, bound by a steep lava wall on one side and a soft, gentle ash slope on the other, before resuming its northward course.

Darielle loved to ride the broad trails through the sagebrush, junipers, and pines, especially the route between the two clusters of peaks where melting snow from the same field flowed both east and west. There, it was as if she could feel her many-greats grandmother gazing fondly upon her. If she looked closely during certain times of the year, Darielle could just make out her face on her western flank where snow revealed bare rock. No wonder she always thought of her smiling at her.

“Are the tales true?” she asked her mother.

“Which ones, dear?”

“The ones about the Matriarch. Is that really her?” She pointed at Mt. Ellen.

“So they say,” said her mother. “That on the eve of her one hundredth birthday, Ellen Sattler-Grant declared that her work still remained unfinished. And so Kugar...” They both made the invoking sign of the Ears. “...transformed her into that mountain and set her in that place to keep watch over the land.

“And at the End Times, when the world gives up the last of its Dead, Ellen and her children in her glaciers will ride forth on flaming dinos, wielding steel swords edged in unbreakable obsidian. She will vanquish all the Dead and bring about a thousand years of peace. During her reign, all the world will be as it should have been since the beginning, since before Kugar made her truce with Kayoti.”

They again made the invoking sign of the Ears and waggled it in warding against Koyoti.


	19. They Just Do What They Do

In the near distance stood a semi-cylindrical building of sheet steel. Its double rolling doors stood open revealing near-blackness inside. The barely-dawn light left everything in at least half shadow. A light frost lent a grey cast to the seemingly endless red brick pavement.

Directly ahead sat a vessel with the name 'Windhammer' painted on its varnished juniper-wood hull.

From stem to stern, it would probably have taken Darielle several hundred heartbeats to run from one end to the other, and it stood more than twenty times her own height.

But the long, fish-shaped bulk hanging above it dwarfed it. Darielle had seen it from afar on her approach. But up close, its shape dissolved into a vast expanse of tightly-woven, deep blue silk. From where she stood, only the ventral stabilizer fin, two of the starboard aetheric cannons, and part of the bow pulse cannon were visible.

From the stern of the gondola protruded a pair of struts on the ends of which were mounted large, six-bladed propellers made of laminated birch edged with hammered copper. Far aft of the gondola hung another, smaller structure supported four more such propellers.

Darielle tapped the ground with the toe of a knee-high leather boot, scuffing the rime of frost.

“Mama,” she asked, “why do they call it 'tarmak?'”

“I am afraid I am not quite sure,” her mother replied. “I believe it to be term from the Anthropocene.”

“Oh.”

She scuffed at the frost again. Her mother cleared her throat quietly. Darielle quickly regained her composure. She exhaled heavily in a plume of mist, thankful she'd heeded the more-than-subtle suggestion to don her traveling leathers, in lieu of the lighter clothing she'd packed into a small trunk that had been loaded the previous evening.

Several paces away, a dozen men and women in uniform stood at attention. A man strode out, came to a crisp stop, and saluted fist-to-chest.

“Majesty! Highness!” he said.

She and Mama returned his salute.

“Commander,” Mama said. “The Captain?”

“Is ill, your Majesty.”

“Oh, dear. With what?”

“I was informed only that he spent all last night, shall we say, casting up his accounts.”

“I see. I assume a Surgeon has seen to him.”

“Yes, your Majesty, she has. Doktor Ravensfury.”

“Very good, then.” She looked at the vessel. “Is she otherwise ready to sail?”

“At your command.”

“Excellent. Oh, and please extend my regrets to the Captain and express my sincerest hope of a speedy recovery.”

The Commander nodded. “Of course.”

“Please see to final preparations. I will be on the Bridge. The rest of you, as you were.”

“Yes, your Majesty! Highness.”

Mama strode forth, her own knee-high jack boots tapping on the tarmak. A pair of airmen on either side of the gangway saluted. She and Mama returned it.

The moment Mama set foot inside the gondola, the vessel's designation officially became Shalyon-One. She paused to exchange more salutes.

“Master-Chief, please be sure our baggage is stowed in our quarters. We will take elevenses on the main mess deck. Oh...” She looked toward the stern where a forklift truck maneuvered a large cage into the cargo hold. “...and do be mindful to keep Strongbow under sedation. You know how he deplores air travel.”

“Majesty!”

Mama looked down at her. “Darielle,” she said, “you may retire to our cabin and read. Or, if you wish, you may accompany me to the Bridge.”

Darielle looked at the book in her hand, a copy of the eighty-seventh volume of the Diary of Ellen Sattler-Grant. She looked up at Mama, then back at the book. She slid the book carefully into her leather satchel and beamed up at Mama. She smiled back.

Finely-split and well-finished cedar paneled the interior, and every fixture gleamed with polished brass. She followed Mama toward the bow, up a steep half-stair-half-ladder and emerged in a space all but littered with levers, wheels, and dials of all sorts, most of them attended by a crewman.

“Sovereign on deck!”

Everyone came to crisp attention.

“Leftenant,” Mama said.

“Majesty!” the Leftenant replied.

“As you were,” Mama said. The Bridge crew returned to their tasks as Mama addressed the Leftenant. “I have been informed regarding the Captain's illness. I am assuming command. Ship's status?”

The Leftenant proceeded to rattle off a string of words and phrases Darielle did not understand. But Mama seemed satisfied with it all. A short time later, the Commander appeared on deck and exchanged salutes.

“Ready to cast off at your command,” he said.

Mama nodded. “Very well. Cast off at will, Commander!”

The Commander barked several commands. A couple of those were relayed through brass tubes fixed to a bulkhead. Other crewmen worked at the brass levers and wheels. After what felt like an eternity, the deck jolted and the whole thing rose abruptly toward the sky.

Darielle gasped and grabbed the nearest railing, her leather gloves creaking against the brass. She looked up and caught Mama's smile. Darielle smiled back despite herself.

She spared a glance out the window. Below, the expanse of Grant Field fell slowly away. Westward, another dirigible rose from the commercial passenger terminal, already pivoting toward a southerly heading. Beyond that, the snow-shrouded summits of the Seven Brides and Seven Brothers gleamed marsh-marigold against a midnight-blue sky in the sun's first rays.

Eastward, the sky behind Mt. Ellen blazed with gold. The mountain's ice glinted where the sunlight washed around it. A few high shreds of cloud shone soft umbrella-leaf pink.

As Darielle watched, the sun crested over Mt. Ellen's shoulder with a blaze of light. A short while later, Windhammer surged upward. A low, steady thrumming thuttered through the deck and Shalyon-One began a ponderous turn.

Far below, the dawn shadows shifted. As night gave way to morning, shapes slowly materialized into what Darielle recognized as a map of central Shalyon. All around Grant Field, expanses of lodgepole pines carpeted the volcanic ash plain on which the millions of paver bricks had been laid. In places, rectangular voids showed where trees had been felled, their branches fed to ankylosaurs or to the charcoal furnaces.

A feeder rail line ran from the airfield, joined the one running straight toward the furnaces, then across a trestle over the River Deshuts where it joined the main line that rain south into central Bend and north toward the Kolumbya Gorge.

The city itself rambled along the western shore of Lake Sattler, from the place where the Murfy Cataract drained the lake around the great lava tongue, south a half-day's ride to the point where a mountain's toe plunged into the lake. From the shore, the city crept upslope toward the Cascade crest, and spread across the plain northwest of the lava tongue.

Along the lake's rocky eastern shore, a small river flowed over a basalt rim in a sheet of white. Another rambled through a cleft in the wall.

No one really knew just where the ancient city of Bend had been. Somewhere buried beneath ash and rock, scoured off the face of the earth, or both.

Darielle watched the land slide by far below. Beyond Bend stretched an expanse of juniper woodland, then some of the equine, llama, and dinosaur ranches. The snow line began just a little east of the small ranching town of Brides.

The deck tilted and the vibration changed in pitch as the airship rose a little more.

Off to the north, Black Butte and its companion cinder cone Red Butte rose pine-clad from the ponderosa forests, their tops still crowned with winter snow. She watched the land glide past, the ponderosa giving way to fir, hemlock, lodgepole, and larch along the crest.

Then the ship slid over the Santiam, just abreast of the peaks flanking the pass, and the land dropped slowly away again.

“Commander,” said Mama, “you have the conn.”

“Aye, Majesty!”

Mama turned to Darielle. “I believe our meal awaits.”

* * *

Somewhere in the nearby woods, a trio of scrub jays squawked. Darielle looked up in time to see the blue-and-white birds scatter from the branches of a bigleaf maple as she and her mother rode past along the brick-paved road that led from the airfield.

She craned her neck up at the high gate set into a stone wall built in the familiar style seen all over Shalyon.

Her mother reined Strongbow to a halt. A moment later, her wagon’s driver brought the styracosaur pulling it to a stop.

Her mother dismounted and Darielle half-scurried down from where she sat. They approached a waiting welcoming detail. They saluted fist-to-chest.

“Your Majesty!” said a woman. “Your Highness! Welcome!”

Her mother smiled. “Thank you, Sir Fentreya. We appreciate it.”

“It is my duty, Majesty.”

Mother chuckled softly and clasped Sir Fentreya’s right hand with her own. “We played together as children. This day, and for the duration of our stay here this month, we are equals.”

Fentreya smiled. “As you wish, Kira. Darielle,” she added. She looked past them briefly. “Does...Strongbow, is it?” At Mother's nod, Fentreya continued, “...need any particular attention?”

Mother shook her head. “Nothing a little more exercise won't work out.”

Fentreya nodded. “I have never met an allosaur that did not detest air travel.”

Mother chuckled. “Fortunately, he is fairly mild-mannered for his breed.”

“I seem to recall that your father found some consolation in that.”

Mother shrugged. “He was none too happy that I ended up paired with an allosaur.”

“Mm. He pushed for...a gallie, as I recall?”

“It did not work out that way.”

“It rarely does. Shall we begin?”

“Certainly.”

“This way, please.” Fentreya led them across the expansive courtyard and through a sturdy door. Behind, Darielle could hear the clatter of wheels and the thump and scrape of heavy objects against wood and stone as, she presumed, people worked to unload the cart, after which their baggage would be taken to their quarters and the other cargo distributed to wherever it was such things went, matters she was sure to learn someday.

She memorized the way as Fentreya led them zigging and zagging through a veritable labyrinth of corridors and doors until at last they emerged into another courtyard. A high slat roof soared above, held up by sturdy timber beams the girth of her whole body. Through it spilled dappled sunlight that bathed the space in filtered light.

Along one side stretched a sturdy fence of logs the size of her leg. Beyond that rested a single large animal and several much smaller ones.

Fentreya led them across a brick pavement to the log fence.

Darielle recognized an adult allosaur and several juveniles. She grinned.

“Now,” said Fentreya, “do not grow so excited yet, young Princess.”

“I know, I know,” Darielle said impatiently, “the dino chooses me. But they are so beautiful!”

“They are indeed. Put out your hand like this.” Fentreya extended her arm, with her hand hanging limply from it.

Darielle imitated it.

“And,” Fentreya continued, “if one of them moves to bite you, you must jerk your hand back as quickly as you can. Otherwise...” She said no more, but made a series of whistling sounds.

The animals look notice. A few moments later, two of the juveniles trotted over and stopped a hands-breadth from Darielle’s fingers and sniffed at her. She watched with rapt fascination.

One of the animals, brick-red fading to rusty-orange below shook its head, snorted, and backed away. The other, black as midnight, grunted, then nudged her hand in a curiously feline manner.

Fentreya chuckled. “Well, well. Remarkable.”

“It is?” Darielle said.

“You wrote,” said Mother, “about a singularly temperamental allosaur. I take it this is the one?”

Fentreya nodded. “She has been an unholy terror to anyone and everyone. Even I must sedate her to so much as make health examinations. You are the first person she has not tried to bite.”

“Does this mean she is mine?”

“That depends,” said Mother. “Are you willing to accept the demands and responsibilities necessary to train with her?”

Darielle drew herself up as straight as she could. “I am!” she declared.

Mother raised an eyebrow slightly, an unspoken, “I will hold you to that” and “do not make me say I told you so” passing between them.

“When do I name her?”

“After you have worked with her for a week.”

* * *

Darielle slid from Night-fury’s back and hit the ground with flexed knees. The soft, ashy soil shifted beneath her feet. She rubbed her allosaur’s neck with one hand while she gazed out at the sights arrayed before her.

Away to the south loomed the blown-out bulk of Mount Hud, the interior of its blast crater clearly visible beneath a glorious early summer day.

A lava dome poked up from the crater’s canted floor. The western lobe of a new glacier nestled between the dome and the crater wall’s base, spilling meltwater through its still-anemic morraine.

A long valley gouged out by what Darielle thought of as her eruption stretched from the mountain’s flanks all the way to the River Kolumbya. Down its center ran a broad ribbon of lava, its chaotic surface broken by myriad fissures and holes. A stream fed by melting snow and ice flowed along each side of the lava tongue, bound between that and the steep wall of the blast gash.

The eastern stream, hidden from her view, flowed into a narrow bay on the eastern side of the flow. The western one emptied over a small cataract and into the river.

The Bridge of the Gods took her breath away. It spanned the entire river, from where the blast had blown out the southern wall of the Gorge, to its opposite wall and towered above the river three times the height of the tallest tree she had ever seen. Along its base, the river’s surface roiled in several places where the water surged below it. Water squirted through a myriad of breaks in the wall, some of them cracks and others the maws of emptied lava tubes. Over several low places along the rim, more water poured in long, sheeting arcs that broke into white foam.

Here and there, the long, silver forms of salmon leaped from the surge, struggled briefly in mid-air, then dropped back into the foam. All along the wall grew white saxifrage, yellow monkey-flower, violet harebell, and pink beard-tongue. Around her feet, purple-and-white lupine and yellow cinquefoil waved in the breeze.

White-and-grey seagulls clustered around blocky islands on the top of the dam. Near-black, white-headed eagles wheeled overhead.

Darielle soon found herself lost in the sight.

“Why do we not live here?” she asked her mother.

“Because,” Mother replied, “the first Zangre was built where we live now.”

Darielle hrmphed as best she could at just past ten winters. “But the very first Zangre is not where today’s is. The second one was not either. And the family has moved scores of times since the Founding, and all the way to the Sakrento!”

“All true. But always we dreamed of returning to the Homeland. And so we do.”

“But it is pretty here!”

“Indeed it is. But there is beauty in the Bend country as well. And, of course, there is your many-greats grandmother to consider.”

Darielle sighed. “I suppose,” she glowered.

“Oh, you like her. You two get along like a prairie fire. You would miss each other’s visits.”

Darielle simply nodded.

“And,” Mother added, “if we lived here, too many people would spend far too much time simply standing here and watching the river instead of seeing to their duties.”

“Such as mounting up and going home and beginning my training for Knighthood?”

“Such as that, yes.” At length, she added, “Oh, do not worry. You may return from time to time. Our Kingdom is wide and part of your duty will be to make the occasional tour.”

Darielle looked abruptly at her mother. “You mean, I may visit all sorts of places? I will have to?”

“Indeed. After all, one cannot rule well simply sitting on one’s throne all the time, mm?”

Darielle gazed again at the thunderous roar of water and the islands of rock amid the flow both below the falls, and across the top of the lava dam. She smiled.

With an effort of will, she turned and bounced onto Night-fury’s back. She made a series of whistles she’d barely learned to do after weeks of practice, and the allosaur rose and turned to thump back down the beaten trail westward.


	20. Woman Inherits the Earth

Darielle opened her eyes on a grey dawn. She blinked the last shreds of sleep away and rolled over. A warm object stopped her. Her breath hitched in her throat. Then she remembered the previous night and smiled.

She gently extracted herself from beneath the gallie-down quilt she shared with Lerhalun and unfolded herself to a flex-kneed standing position. She stretched, the chilly montane air pricking at her bare body. She took a deep breath, held it, then slowly let it back out. She took a glance at the tuft of dark hair sticking out, and padded across the pine needles and out into a meadow starred with yellow buttercups, purple beard-tongue, white marsh-marigold, pink elephant-heads above which rose violet lupine and green corn-lily.

Above it, the cone of Mount Ellen scraped the sky. A wash of pale buttery light from a sunrise still at least an hour away spilled over the mountain's flanks, silhouetting it against a sky still part morning twilight. She gazed up toward its summit and took several deep, controlled breaths.

“Grandmother? Grandmother! Grandmother Ellen, I would very much like your help!”

Darielle cringed at the sound of her own voice, though barely a whisper. She looked back across the meadow toward the pine grove a hundred paces away and the brown gallie-down quilt covering her sleeping lover.

If lover was the right word. She'd only met the man two days before, after all. Never mind that her parents wanted her to marry him. Never mind his parents wanted the same thing. And screw the politics of the whole thing anyway!

She exhaled heavily. “What did I get myself into this time?” she wondered aloud.

“It might be the other way around.” The long-familiar voice sounded in her mind.

Darielle spun about. Not four paces away stood a pale-skinned woman about her own height, clad only in a simple knee-length, sleeveless tunic woven of a material so fine as to defy description. Her dirty-blonde hair hung loosely down her back. Small-ish, bright blue eyes gazed intensely from a pale face and on her brow was the steel-blue mark of a Knight of Thunder.

Darielle closed the gap between them in two strides and flung her arms around the woman, feeling the not-quite-solidity and a pair of not-quite-arms returning her embrace. A few moments later, she pulled back, forcing down the tears threatening to well up.

“I have a problem,” she half-choked.

“It must be quite the problem, that you come all the way out here to see me about it. And in such a state of undress.”

Darielle started and looked down. She immediately began fidgeting despite herself. “Oh. Er...”

Ellen made a dismissive gesture. “Think nothing of it. You have nothing I have not seen. Same with your boyfriend over there.”

“Wha...?”

“Nice abs, by the way.”

“Abs?”

Ellen pointed to Darielle's flat belly.

Darielle ran a palm over the softened ridges. “Oh...right. I, uh, do extra training when I am stressed.”

“You used to hit people.”

“I still do. Sir Meanwyn assigned me two hundred punishment burpees yesterday for unnecessary aggression on the training field.”

“Did she, now? And you still had enough energy for a night of...”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Darielle said impatiently.

“You must be under a lot of stress, then. Your body looks like a Greek goddess!”

“Says the volcano goddess.”

Ellen shrugged and tapped her own flat belly. “Hard as rock.”

Darielle laughed softly.

“Congratulations on your Knighthood, by the way.” She gestured at Darielle's forehead.

Darielle beamed. “Oh. Thank you!”

“I regret being unable to linger after your ceremony. That storm arrived a little early. Rather annoying, that.”

“I am pleased you could be there for that much.”

“But with one exception.” Ellen leaned a little closer. “This one had you in it. I must say, though, that you have impressed me. Few attain Knighthood before their twentieth winter, fewer still by their eighteenth. Especially for women. It requires a phenomenal amount of work, focus, discipline, and, dare I say it, obstinacy.”

“Many-greats Grandmother Alexis did it.”

“Alexis founded the Knights of Thunder. Those were extraordinary times.”

“I wish I had been there.”

Ellen snorted. “The only people who ever say that are the ones who did not live it. Whenever anyone tells you that adventure is someone else being miserable in a far away land, they are understating things.

“So, tell me about this problem of yours. I assume it has something to do with that young man still sleeping over there?”

Darielle exhaled through her nose, and nodded. She took a deep breath and blurted out the whole thing.

Ellen's eyebrow rose incrementally the whole time, joined by the other one. “I assume there to be a reason you came to me with this instead of discussing it with your parents.”

Darielle grunted. “They would not understand.”

Ellen cocked her head. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Darielle growled.

“Have either of them told you about how they met?”

“No,” Darielle glowered. “Only that their marriage was arranged, same as mine.”

“She dragged your father out here, just like you dragged Lerhalun. And just like you, the two of them spent the night...”

“Gah! Stop! I do _not_ want to think about my parents...ngh!”

Ellen grinned.

“You enjoyed that.”

“I like to think of it as exercising my prerogative as your four-hundred-and-seventy-three-greats grandmother. Anyway, she resented the arrangement. They married anyway. Eight months later, you were born.”

“Eight...oh...right.”

“The point, my dear, is that history tends to repeat itself, and you are your mother's daughter.”

Darielle crossed her arms defiantly. Ellen raised an expectant eyebrow. One heartbeat merged into the next, and the next, and the next. Several dozen later, Darielle let out a disgusted sigh.

“I hate it when you do that,” she said. Then, “Apologies, Many-greats Grandmother. I...came here asking for help and...” She left off with a puff of air through her lips.

“Darielle,” said Ellen, “I am going to tell you a few things you will not like. And you will not like that you will not like it.”

Darielle shot Ellen a look, but said nothing.

“First, forget about what your parents want. What do _you_ want?”

“I want to marry for love,” said Darielle.

“Good. I want that for you, too. Tell me this. Do you think you and Lerhalun can learn to love each other?”

Darielle looked toward the grove, then back to Ellen and sighed. “I do not know. Possibly.”

“Oh, come now. You two already get along like a prairie fire.”

“Well,” said Darielle pensive, “I do like him.”

“You spent most of last night pounding each other into oblivion and you merely like him?”

“Grandmother!”

“Just saying.”

“I came out under the pretense of taking a ride and getting to know Lerhalun.”

Ellen giggled. “You certainly did that. And your mother allowed this?”

“Oh, she gave me a considering look. Then she told me to stay away from here. Never mind that here was where I planned to go all along.”

“She probably knew that.”

Darielle frowned.

“Your mother is playing a very precarious balancing act. On the one hand, she loves you with the unyielding ferocity of an allosaur defending her young.”

“But...”

“Just trust me on that. As a mother myself, I am qualified to make that assertion. She loves you and wants what is best for you, including a happy love life, whether in marriage or not.

“On the other hand, as Queen, the pressures of politics make demands on her, demands she dare not ignore. It is no accident Lerhalun was brought here. Oh, he may ostensibly bring with him the Lake Lahontan watershed, and all that. But I think she also knows that among all your suitors, Lerhalun is the most likely to be your match from a personal point of view.

“What is more, you like him, but you dislike it that you like him. You want him, but you do not want to want him. You, my dear, are a contradiction.”

Darielle snorted. “Everybody likes him. My parents like him, and not just for political reasons. My sister likes him. For that matter, my brother likes him. Even Night-fury likes him!”

Ellen chuckled. “Now, _that_ is saying something.”

Darielle rolled her eyes. “I know, right? Let us see,” she said pensively, marking them off on her fingers. “Leef soiled himself. Sharlem nearly lost an arm. Lucky to have to left only missing two fingers, a palm-breadth of scalp, and one measure of blood, he was. Eris sobbed like a little girl when Night-fury ate his dogs. And Rognfaln...” She shuddered. “I _told_ him not to go near her. Several times, in point of fact. He ignored me. And now his parents blame me and we gird for war. All because Rognfaln was a blithering imbecile!”

Darielle exhaled heavily. The plume of breath hung in the air for a half-dozen heartbeats.

“Fortunately, the arrangement requites my consent.”

“Have you not already given it?”

“Um...no.”

“Did you not spend most of the night consenting? Over and over and...”

“Alright, alright.”

“Because if he did not have your consent, I can hit hard.”

“No!” Darielle shrieked. “If that is in jest, I am not amused.”

Ellen smiled. “You care about him, yes?”

Darielle sighed through her nose. “Yes. And not only because I let him cleave my maidenhead.”

“Unless I miss my guess, that man is interested in a woman who will challenge his intellect, as well as his loins.”

“And you think I am that woman?”

Ellen laughed. “My dear, you have enough challenge in your left pinkie toe to last him half a lifetime.”

“How do you know all of that?”

“I heard you two talking on your way here. Trust me, sound carries very well through rock. And the way you squealed in ecstasy...”

“Grandmother!”

“What? I once had a body of flesh and blood. How do you think I became your grandmother in the first place, mm?”

“But...”

“Darielle, I am more than twelve thousand years old. I would be very surprised to see anything new, and even more surprised if any of it shocked me.”

Darielle tucked a lock of wavy, ebony hair behind an ear and smiled bashfully.

Ellen smiled in return. “Besides, it does my heart good to see you enjoying yourself.”

“But Grandmother,” she half-teased, “you have no heart.”

“Now, now,” said Ellen in kind, “just because my heart has no blood or muscle, that hardly means I do not have one. If anyone has a problem with it, tell them you have my blessing.”

“And if they disbelieve me?”

“People tend to take notice when their sacred mountains start to rumble.”

“You would do that?”

“To get their attention, absolutely.”

“If they misinterpret that as an omen of ill tidings?”

Ellen rolled her eyes. “Omen of ill tidings,” she said sarcastically. “I never quite entirely understood that. Perhaps that is why I never studied anthropology. Or perhaps because of it.” At Darielle's frown, Ellen said, “Never mind. I think, perhaps, it is time I put in another appearance. At your wedding, perhaps? I promise not to upstage you.”

“Up-ste-ish?”

“Anthropocene reference. In my day, the bride was the most important person at her own wedding. And so it was bad manners to attend wearing fancier dress than she.”

“I see. And what, exactly, did you have in mind?”

“Oh, only the height of late-Anthropocene fashion for formal occasions.”

Ellen abruptly changed. Her tunic shifted quickly to black, the hem rising to just above the knee, the neck-line falling to show just a little cleavage. A single strand of pearls appeared around her neck. Her hair piled up atop her head. A pair of black leather slippers appeared on her feet, each held by a spike half a hand-span long. Her lips grew snowplant-red, thin black lines appeared around her eyes, her eyelashes darkened, and her lids took on a faint blue-ish cast.

“What do you think?” she asked.

Darielle looked Ellen up and down. “Wow. That is...impressive. How did you do that?”

“This form is an avatar, remember?”

“A what?”

“A projection, a representation if you will. Remember, my body is made of rock.”

“Ah, yes, well. And what are those things on your feet?”

“High heels. Do you like them?”

“Like them? Who would wear those?”

“Most women of the late Anthropocene.”

“Well, they look torturous.”

“Oh, they are.”

“Then why, by Kugar's whiskers, would anyone wear them?”

“Because they make our calves look more shapely.”

Darielle threw up her hands in exasperation. “Kugar mother of cats and all her wacky nephews!”

Ellen laughed.

“I am glad _you_ are amused. You really do not intend to show up at my wedding like that, do you?”

“Of course I do. Besides, what would anyone do? Cut out my tongue? Throw me into prison? Extradite me?”

Darielle laughed quietly. “Very well, Grandmother, I would be honored if you would attend my wedding.”

Ellen's eyes brightened. “You have decided, then?”

Darielle sighed. “I think in my heart, I had already decided. I...resented being forced. I still do.”

“Do you have line-item veto power over the marriage contract?”

“I...do not know. I will ask. But I want to be very clear that I do it because I want to, not because it is expected of me. Besides, Night-fury likes him. And you know how she is. She has not so much as growled at him. In fact, she tried to lick him.”

Ellen laughed. Darielle joined her.

“Oh, he was not amused. Resisted, he did. And she seemed a little put-out about that. Oh, he still thinks she wants to eat him.”

“Mm. I find his protests amusing.”

“So do I. I am not sure he believes me.”

Ellen chuckled. “She almost started a war over Altan.”

Darielle snorted. “He was an ass! I nearly put a blade into his gut myself. Night-fury saved me the trouble.”

“She saved us all a lot of trouble.”

“My parents disagreed.”

“Of course they did. The whole thing was politically inexpedient.”

“Politically inexpedient!” Darielle retorted. “I am the one who was trying to decide how to decline his marriage offer.”

“What, and ‘I hate your guts with the fury of a thousand burning suns’ was not good enough?”

Darielle laughed. “If only!”

“I also recall that you abandoned the idea of delaying your Knighthood.”

“Only after the usual suspects, meaning my mother and Sir Meanwyn, caught on.”

“You were a little too obvious about it.”

“I was terrified of the idea of marrying for politics. I was not thinking clearly.”

“You were also sixteen and thought you knew everything.”

“According to my mother, I still think I know everything.”

“Clearly, you overcame your fear.”

“Fear, yes. Hatred, no. Anyway, Mother sat me down and had a good, long talk about accepting the inevitable.”

“And it is not as if they could not have seen that coming.”

“I know, I know, my mother tried the very same things when she was my age.”

“And with exactly the same results.”

“You are taking this rather calmly.”

Ellen shrugged. “I have no endocrine or hormones or any of that to get in the way.”

“How did you once put that? 'You may be grumpy in the morning, but I am happy and generous. Song on my lips, love in my heart.'”

Ellen smiled. “Exactly.”

“Except for one difference. You cannot be harmed. We, on the other hand, face an invading army.”

“Wedding first, my dear. War second.”

“Grandmother, do you have any idea how long it takes to plan and execute a royal wedding? Do not answer that.” Darielle clasped her hands behind her back and began to pace. “I refuse to allow my nuptials to be overshadowed by a war,” she growled.

“Leave that to me.”

Darielle stopped short, and looked sharply at Ellen. “Erm...what?”

“In the very end, civilizations perish because they listen to their politicians, and not to their poets.”

“Interesting way to put it.”

“Jonas Mekas did.”

“Who was that?”

“A poet. But that is unimportant. What matters is that it is time I did a little less watching and a lot more doing.”

Darielle blinked. “You mean to say...you will involve yourself in this?”

Ellen nodded. “I watched my people depart this land once. I have no desire to see it happen again. Besides, you and your mother are my favorite granddaughters.”

Darielle snorted. “We are your _only_ granddaughters.”

Ellen snorted. “Nonsense. Do you have any idea how many hundreds of grandchildren I have?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“A great many. But that is neither here nor there.”

“I assume you have a plan. One that involves something dramatic, perhaps?”

Ellen cracked her knuckles conspicuously. “If they, or anyone else, thinks the only thing I can do is toss pyroclastics in their general directions, they are very badly mistaken.”

Darielle grinned. “You know my father will protest.”

Ellen snorted. “Of course he will. But he cannot stop me. Nor, unless I miss my guess, can he stop your mother or you.”

“My father says I need to be tamed.”

Ellie laughed. “Tamed! My lower southern vent cluster you do! No, no, no. What you really need is to be unleashed!”

“But upon what?”

“That is the question, is it not?” Ellen looked past Darielle. “I do believe your husband-to-be is beginning to stir. If I were you, I would go to him and demand breakfast.”

Darielle cocked her head. “He cooks?”

Ellen grinned. “Not that kind of breakfast.”

“Wh...oh!” A smile spread across Darielle's face. “We will talk more later.”

“I look forward to it.”

The two exchanged an embrace. “And thank you. I needed all of that.”

“Any time, my dear, any time. But promise me one thing.”

“What is that?”

“That you will put a bug into people's ears to stop calling me 'Mount Ellen.' It makes me feel like I'm in a porno flick.”

Darielle blinked. “A...a what? Wait, let me guess. Anthropocene reference?”

Ellen nodded. “In English, it is an innuendo.”

Darielle cocked her head. “Surely not.”

“It loses something in translation.”

“I do not doubt it.” She nodded. “But I will see what I can do.”

Darielle started back toward the grove. After a dozen steps, she paused and turned around on the ball of a foot. “Oh, one more...”

Where Ellen's manifestation had been, a large mountain lion sat on its haunches, gazing at Darielle with piercing blue eyes. She quickly signed the Ears. The lion seemed to smile, licked a paw, then turned and was gone. She blinked after it several times, took a deep breath, held it, then slowly let it out.

“She was right,” she breathed. “About everything.”

She padded back to the trees, knelt down beside Lerhalun, and turned the quilt back. He opened his eyes.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he said half-groggily.

“Good morning yourself,” she said. She grinned. “Breakfast,” she said.

He began to sit up. “I could prepare us some...”

She pushed him back down and slid astride him. “First, this kind. Then the other.” She wiggled for effect, and felt his manhood rising toward her.

Some time later, she braced herself against her hands, panting, and gazed into those blue eyes of his.

After several moments, once her breathing had calmed some, and while she could still feel him inside her, she asked, “How would you like to be styled Emperor?”

“Of what?”

“The World!”

He raised an eyebrow. She grinned.


End file.
